Category: Outreach Committee

The Outreach Committee is collecting new and lightly-used winter clothing for the RIAC’s new immigrant families in Roxbury and Worcester—for men, women, and children of all ages. Hats, coats, scarves, sweaters, shirts, pants, and other winter garments are all welcome and urgently needed. Please leave donations by January 26 in the collection box in the hall of the Parish House side entry. Contact Larry Buell (fplgiving@gmail.com) with any questions.

Monday, January 20, 2020
First Parish continues a long-standing tradition of service on MLK Day by providing a warm meal and warm socks to our most vulnerable neighbors,

Waltham Day Center is part of a network of shelters which provide lifesaving support to over 50 homeless people who suffer from mental illness and substance abuse.

Over 25 members of First Parish will be participating by baking, cooking and serving the meal on a day the shelter would otherwise be closed if not for our help. Signup sheets will be available in the Stearns room after the service on January 12th.

You can also help by leaving a sock donation (or gloves) in the bin located at the side entrance to the Stone Church, from now to January 19th, or bring to the Sunday service on January 12th or 19th.

This year’s offering will be donated to All Hands and Hearts, a highly-respected Massachusetts-based disaster relief organization, to be split 50-50 between efforts to restore the Northern Bahamas community of Marsh Harbor, the hardest hit of all the districts in that country by Hurricane Dorian last September, and the continuing work of reconstructing homes in Puerto Rico damaged or destroyed by Hurricane Maria in 2017. At our December 15 worship service, AH&H Founder and Director David Campbell—who lives in nearby Carlisle—spoke movingly about both these projects and about AH&H’s work at a number of other sites around the world.

Please give generously! –either by cash to the offering at all Christmas eve services or by check to Lincoln First Parish with “Christmas offering” in the memo line at any December worship service or by mail to FPL, P. O. Box 6218, Lincoln MA 01773.

www.allhandsandhearts.org

This year’s Thanksgiving offering will be given to First Parish’s long-term partner organization in Haiti, the Matenwa Community Learning Center, as it struggles to meet unexpected critical needs caused by recent outbreaks of violence and political strife that have precipitated fuel and food supply crises, aggravated by a sharp drop in value of the national currency.

The students and teachers at Matenwa, a school with a remarkable track record through troubled times in educating youth and training teachers, are suffering especially from an acute food shortage. Our support will be crucial in ensuring they all receive at least one full meal each day. The plentiful sources of nutrition we now take for granted, alas they cannot. Please give generously!

Donations may be made either by cash contribution to the collection plate at on Sunday, November 24; or by check (to First Parish in Lincoln with “special Thanksgiving offering” in the memo line) at one of the next two worship services (November 24 and December 1) or by mail to FPL, P.O. Box 6218, Lincoln MA 01773.

The Outreach Committee of the First Parish, Lincoln seeks qualified nonprofit organizations to apply for the Jean Wood Preston Fund Grant competition in 2019-2020. This year there are two options; (1) the traditional Jean Wood Preston Grant ($5000 – $25,000), which is for a one-time capital improvement project essential in enabling the organization to further its goals and/or (2) the Transformative Innovation Grant (also $5000-$25,000), potentially over a period of as many as 3 years), which is for critical program development that promises to take the organization in an important new direction or provide a major new extension of services.

A critical factor in our decision process will be the level of impact the project would have on the ability of the organization to fulfill its mission.  In submitting a proposal, we encourage you to be highly creative in determining the kind of project that would truly impact the effectiveness of the services that you provide your clients.  

Please find attached the guidelines for each Grant and the application by clicking the button below. Organizations may apply for both grants but they must be on separate application forms. Please read the application paperwork carefully because our terms and requirements have changed.  The application deadline is DECEMBER 31, 2019. Please submit the application to FPLgiving@gmail.com.

The Outreach Committee will begin choosing finalists for the traditional Preston Grant and site visits will be scheduled during March and April so that the Outreach Committee can learn more about the project.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Melissa Brooks, Administrator, Jean Wood Preston Grant