Outreach

Alianzas strives for equity and the dignity of diverse communities regardless of their country of origin by providing services to the under-resourced and by promoting intercultural exchanges to connect all individuals in the broader community. Their programs include a Food and Essentials program, Clinical Trauma Counseling Program, English Learner’s program, conversational Spanish program for learners, a leadership academy, and a variety of mediation services. Learn more on their website.

The Ardmore Food Pantry at St. Mary’s Ardmore serves more than 400 food insecure families and individuals each year. A St. David’s Outreach partner, the Ardmore Food Pantry is a full-choice pantry and provides protein, produce, and dairy in addition to nonperishable items. Each harvest season St. David’s brings produce from our garden over for them to distribute, and we also collect nonperishable items for them, ongoing.

There are on going opportunities to volunteer by distributing the food, food stocking, and sorting. They’re right in our backyard at 36 Ardmore Avenue, Ardmore, PA 19003. If you have any questions, please reach out to the Rev. Tanya Regli to get involved!For more information contact the Rev. Tanya Regli.

The Outreach Commission is excited to announce that we will start a feeding ministry at Chester Eastside, Inc. (CEI) in Chester, Pennsylvania, a food desert. The organization is located in St. Paul’s Episcopal Church on East 9th Street. CEI currently holds four lunches during the week and they are hoping that St. David’s will be in a position to adopt a day so that they may increase to five days a week.

Training is required to serve, so please watch the weekly eNews or contact the Rev. Tanya Regli or Tracey Smith to receive updates on trainings and service opportunities.

Sign up to help here.

If you want to assist this feeding ministry, but are not able to serve at the lunches in person, you can also join the Women’s Feeding Ministry in preparing casseroles on the second Mondays of each month at 10 a.m. here in St. David’s kitchen. You can sign up for these under Women’s Feeding Ministry on our Outreach page.

Episcopal Community Services challenges systemic poverty across the Diocese of Pennsylvania by reducing barriers to opportunities and empowering independence, wellness, and stability. St. David’s supports ECS through outreach donations, individual service on the Board of ECS, and in programs sponsored by ECS.

Episcopal Legal Aid brings free civil legal aid services to communities in need in Philadelphia and its surrounding counties. They offer regular legal aid clinics out in communities to meet people confidentially right in their environments.

Family Promise is a partnership of congregations within a community helping families who are facing homelessness. This organization mobilizes community resources and helps families regain their housing, their independence and their dignity. On several occasions throughout the year, St. David’s hosts families for a week at a time where we provide dinner, compassionate companionship, and safe, secure overnight accommodations.

Please click here to sign up for a training session in order to participate in an upcoming Host Week.

There are 6 volunteer opportunities each week: dinner preparation, evening host, overnight host, set-up, clean-up, and laundry. We need to fill 53 volunteer spots for each host week. If you are interested in becoming a volunteer, please sign up for a training session using the volunteer link below, or contact Cindy McCallum.

If you have already had training, please remember the Evening Hosts and Overnight Hosts must have the required security clearances.

• PA Criminal Background Check: https://epatch.pa.gov/home
• PA Child Abuse Clearance: https://www.compass.state.pa.us/cwis/public/home
• Safe Church Training: https://www.praesidiumacademy.com/learn/ Login is your email address and temporary password is Welcome1!

Clearances must be on file at St. David’s Church (contact Roe DeRitis with questions.).

Thank you for continuing to support Family Promise; this is a much-needed organization in our community and does such great work supporting homeless families.

Volunteer Drivers Needed: Tuesdays and\or Wednesdays | 4-5 p.m.

Do you like the smell of bread? Even if you don’t, we could still use your help. A handful of parishioners from St. David’s visit LeBus in King of Prussia at closing to pack up all the unsold bread and deliver it to shelters and organizations supporting those in need. We are looking for more people to join in on the fun. If you have any interest in being part of the team, please contact Stacey Rohrbeck for details.

Ugandan girls without menstrual supplies often stay home from school during their periods, missing up to two months of education and opportunity each year. Project Ensonga makes and distributes sustainable menstrual hygiene kits for students in Uganda. Designed by Days for Girls International, the kits are washable and last up to three years. After kits were distributed in other Ugandan schools, absentee rates dropped from 36% to 8%. A few times per month, the Project Ensonga ministry gets together to help sew and assemble these kits.

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Located in downtown West Chester, Safe Harbor is a homeless shelter for men and women in crisis. Safe Harbor’s mission encompasses food, shelter, and individualized action plans to help people rebuild life skills, reestablish self-esteem and overcome issues that prevent them from leading independent productive lives.

St. David’s has partnered with Safe Harbor to prepare and deliver 30 bagged lunches to shelter residents and other needy community members once a month. We also provide a prepared dinner for shelter residents monthly. Everything is delivered to Safe Harbor on the first Friday of each month. Volunteers may sign up to help on a SignUp Genius, sent out about a week and half beforehand to give volunteers time to prepare and/or purchase food. Volunteers can drop off donations at the church (we have a labeled shelf in the refrigerator for perishables and the back pantry for everything else).

Each year during the holidays, the St. David’s community collects items to be brought to St. Gabriel’s. The church than distributes these much-needed items to the homeless in the city. Items collected include Blessing Bags during Thanksgiving, and mittens, gloves, hats, and scarves during Christmas time.

The Rev. W. Frank Allen (Board Chair) gives the 2022 Co-Founders Cup to Dominic with Dave Kasievich, Head of School, at right

St. David’s has been involved in supporting St. James School since 2010 in various ways. We have provided seed money for two classroom projects, used our Hammer & Nails Men’s Fellowship for renovations and remodeling projects, supported many Day-of-Service projects, and involved numerous parishioners in vital ministries including one-on-one tutoring, library and literacy support, mentoring, administrative support, and more!

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Our parishoners provide canned goods and other non-perishables to the food pantry, including: canned tuna, pasta and spaghetti sauce, soups, and peanut butter and jelly. We also can accept toiletries and baby diapers and wipes. For a current list of urgently needed items, please see St. Mary’s Amazon Wish List.

You may also serve at St. Mary’s any Thursday from 12 noon to 2 p.m. For more information contact Ned Miller or the Rev. Tanya Regli.

Stand with Iraqi Christians (SWIC) believes loving presence, and listening, are the first steps in creating lasting and fruitful friendships. Since 2015, SWIC has been growing just such relationships with Iraqi Christian communities in this process that Archbishop Michael Lewis has described as a Ministry of Presence. In this approach, we acknowledge that we are just as desperately in need of Iraqi Christians’ extraordinary sense of faith and resilience as they are in need of our material assistance to rebuild their war-torn communities. The growing of this kinship made SWIC today one of the most impactful NGOs operating on the Nineveh Plains of Iraq. SWIC focuses on agricultural and Small Business Redevelopment efforts; we also plan to significantly expand our support for education, as schools, parents, and others prepare the next generation of Iraqi citizens and leaders.

Women of St. David’s concerned with local hunger meet monthly in the church kitchen to prepare casseroles for our food ministry partners, especially at this time Chester Eastside Ministries. We meet on second Mondays of the month in the morning from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. No special skills required, just bring your smile and your desire to join in and support our local partners. All of the ingredients and aprons will be provided.

Please RSVP here for an upcoming date.

St. David’s is blessed to have three international ministries in Cuba, Guatemala, and Uganda. Between these locations, St. David’s parishioners have built homes, schools, hospitals, and churches that have touched thousands of lives, as well as provided scholarships for children to attend school. Every few years there is an opportunity for parishioners to visit one of these countries to build relationships with our partners, see the work our funds have made possible, and participate in hands-on ministry.

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