Barnett Shoals Elementary School Clothing Drive

Every Fall, St. Gregory’s sponsors a parish-wide clothing drive to support our neighbor, Barnett Shoals Elementary School. This year, school personnel have devoted extra time to reviewing prioritized clothing needs for the schools’ clothes closets. Your contributions of any of the following items will make a difference:

• boys’ and girls’ pants and shorts - all sizes, Youth XS-XL

• boys’ sweatpants - all sizes, Youth XS-XL and Adult Small - Medium

• girls’ leggings - all sizes, Youth XS-XL and Adult Small - Large

• boys’ and girls’ underwear - all sizes, XS-XL

• socks - all sizes

• boys’ and girls’ shirts - all sizes, XS-XL (can include t-shirts in multi- packs, not necessarily gendered)

• Boys’ and girls’ pants may include new and gently-used, clean items.

Donations will be collected from Monday, September 30 through Friday, November 1, in the boxes located in the lobby of the Parrish Hall. If you have any questions, please contact Gail Eilers, eilersgail@gmail.com, or Jane Sheridan, jsheridan@friendlycity.net. Thank you, in advance, for your support.

Help Needed in Parish Office!

As you may have heard, our Parish Administrator is on Family Medical Leave for the month of October, returning after All Saints' Day. (Please keep her family in your prayers.) If you find yourself in possession of some spare time, the office (the rector?) would love some assistance with handling the phones during office hours. Click this link to sign up: Thanks so much!

Volunteer Opportunity: Counter Needed

Counters work together in pairs to tally a week’s worth of contributions to St. Gregory the Great. When the tally is completed, either counter takes the contributions to deposit at Truist Bank on Gaines School Road. Counting takes about 30 minutes, the visit to the bank takes about 10 minutes, and counters work just once a month. Counting pairs determine a mutually convenient time during their counting week to meet in the copy room in the Parish Hall to tally checks and cash donated during the week. Lifetime commitment to counting isn’t required or expected. Counting is an easy task and an opportunity to serve at St. Gregory the Great.

Currently, counters include Lois Alworth (wilo59@charter.net), Stacie Court (stacie.court@gmail.com), Gail Eilers (eilersgail@gmail.com), Angela Greene (angelagreene23@gmail.com), Katie Hein (khein@uga.edu), Jane Hudson (janeghudson@gmail.com), Alice Mohor (alicemohor@windstream.com), Katie Reinberger (kreinbe@gmail.com), and Maggie Reinberger (mmreinberger@gmail.com), any of whom are happy to answer your questions about counting.

Contact Jane Hudson at janeghudson@gmail.com to volunteer to count.

Call to St. Gregory's Artists!

The Card Ministry needs new art for 2024 cards. The ministry sends birthday cards for children and youth up to 18 years old and seniors 70 and over, and also get-well cards, messages of encouragement, and sympathy cards in time of bereavement.

If you have questions or would like to submit a work of art for a card please contact Jenifer Borg. Please send pictures in jpeg format. A wide range of art is welcome, but images should not be specific to gender or race.

Thank you,
Card Ministry 

Dismantling Racism Training

The 2023 Dismantling Racism Training schedule from The Absalom Jones Episcopal Center for Racial Healing is now available. This class is required for all parish clergy and all lay leaders, including vestry members. We also recommend taking the class every three years.

Click here to view the training schedule.

2023 EPIPHANY DRIVE FOR FAMILY PROMISE

As most of you know, St. Gregory’s belongs to Family Promise (previously Interfaith Hospitality Network), an organization of churches in Athens that provides homeless families a temporary place to stay while they work their way back to stability. The breadwinners of the families get rides to work if needed. Those who don’t have jobs are provided some of the support they need to find one. Meals are provided. Family Promise also works to prevent homelessness by helping families with a rent or utility payment or with the purchase of a used vehicle. These are truly opportunities to put our faith into action.

While we have the chance to serve as onsite volunteers during three weeks of the year, there are many parishioners who are unable to show up in person but would be interested in helping with Family Promise. We hope our 2023 Epiphany Drive will provide the opportunity to do just that.

Family Promise has an Amazon wishlist which, of course, is readily accessible to anyone shopping on Amazon. This link takes you directly to the Family Promise wishlist. There, you may add items directly to your Cart, pay for them as you do any Amazon order, and Amazon delivers the items straight to the registered Family Promise address. This provides an easy way to help meet the needs of the homeless population served by this program, and we hope that many of you will agree and participate. We will announce this effort several times during our January 6-February 6 Epiphany Drive. 

In recognition of the fact that not everyone shops with Amazon, we will also provide paper copies of the Family Promise wishlist as inserts in our church bulletins during January. You may purchase as many items as you choose, bring them to the Fellowship Hall at church any time from January 6 – February 6, and we will deliver them to Family Promise.

However you decide to participate, you may rest assured that your contributions will significantly impact Family Promise and its clients.