Care Abounds in Communities

Hands-on

• Thanksgiving boxes/baskets for needy families (same Christmas)

•  Pizza and bowling/skating event for foster children, orphans, underprivileged kids at afterschool program through one of local churches

•  Prepare and serve a mid-day meal for Seniors (all your churches & bring friends!). Have a Volunteer Coordinating agency present how they can get involved and make a difference in their community. Door prizes & Games (like Bingo!) are a must. Be sure a Board member/Financial Representative has Thrivent display available to encourage volunteering as Thrivent Financial members!

• Sponsor "D" day --- Serve Doughnuts for Donations for a local charity (collect toys for kids for Christmas, blankets, supplies for homeless people (Can make holiday bags w/toiletries and treats! See Sweet Story of Jesus below).

• Hands-on: Sponsor Operation Christmas Child (Samaritan's Purse). Provide shoeboxes (plastic storage), brochures and be a drop-off point to take to warehouse. Take a group of volunteers to work in the warehouse while you're at it!! Call ahead/schedule.

Fundraiser

• Souper Bowl of Caring - Did you know that this wonderful outreach/fund-raising project for local hunger programs had it roots right in our area. 20 years ago as a seminary student from Columbia, SC, Rev. Brad Smith began a collection of funds with his youth group on Super Bowl Sunday. By 2007 this had grown to 15,000 groups across the US raising $8,000,000. In our area of NC, SC, and GA, 235 of our 650 congregations participated! The idea is to volunteer at a local food center on Saturday, collect funds for the hungry Sunday AM, and watch the Super Bowl together Sunday evening. Easy project that teaches, engages, and involves our youth. It is a great fund-raiser for a church or chapter. For materials and information contact souperbowl.org or your regional Thrivent Financial office at 866-375-8211.

• Sponsor an Alternative Gift Fair --- invite churches and community to make a donation and receive a gift card to give in honor of others and in lieu of conventional Christmas gifts. Set up an information display & serve refreshments to raise awareness of Thrivent Financial for Lutherans (& more ways to impact social ministry and global mission). Invite Financial Reps to greet & meet!

• Having a special musical presentation, youth drama or children's program during the season? Tweak it... Form a team and promote a charity along with the event. The church will appreciate the support (and look at how volunteer hours have expanded as you are all volunteering together) and so will the charity that receives the donation. Lutheran Family Services of the Carolinas is a great recipient for youth, children and family events.

• Turn a mid-week meal or Sunday congregational dinner into a fund-raiser for a local charity as part of your Advent Season celebrations and traditions.

Suggestions

• Take something you already do and have a Thrivent service team add value and purpose to the event, dinner, tradition by adding a charitable component. (see last two items above as examples).

• Leverage your dollars by supplementing $1 to every $3. Count ALL the volunteer hours.

• Contact Social Ministry, Global Mission, and Youth Ministry to see how we can partner with their outreach ministry goals. Pastors and church secretaries are wonderful resources, too.

Hands-on

• Shovels & salt for churches to prepare for icy steps & walkways this winter OR another property project day. Refreshments and/or lunch can be funded for all-day projects!

• Sponsor "D" day -- Serve Doughnuts for Donations for our troops (supplies for kids of all ages to make cards & collect gum, hard candy, hand-held games with batteries, paperback devotions, etc. to mail to someone you know oversees for them to share with troops and people they are protecting/serving)

• Buys candy, baggies, brown or white bags, hole punch, ribbon and produce sweet story inserts to distribute The Sweet Story of Jesus during Advent. This can be used for Evangelism with an invitation to join your worship services, a handout for guests in your church or school, a handout for an organization that support homeless, hungry, imprisoned, etc.

• You can do the same as above for specific items for your in-house (in the Lord's house) needs (crayons, scissors, glue sticks, markers, walmart gift cards for Sunday School supplies; blankets/underwear/socks/backpacks/rain ponchos for your Room In the Inn guests.

Fundraiser

• Have a Hymnfest and sing-a-long in conjunction with a mid-week meal or Sunday congregational meal or refreshments in conjunction with a gathering (like annual meeting). Collect monies for your new hymnals. Pass the plate for a special offering for a month at every service or gathering.... leverage those funds with your CIC monies!!! You may want to sponsor a specific number of hymnals and put a bookplate in the front of those books acknowledging TF members... (See Ginny for details).

• Auction off or hire out youth and abled body volunteers to rake leaves, put down mulch, etc. -- This can be mission money for a gulf coast trip to help those still hurting from Katrina. Email Mike Wendt to coordinate a trip in your church or community.

• Tweak a mid-week meal by presenting a TBH (Thrivent Builds Houses) or TBW (Worldwide, which includes Gulf Coast) component as a fund-raiser opportunity. There are many ideas for activities for kids and to decorate tables to engage people and have lots of fun online (www.thriventbuilds.com... see tool chest). Mike Wendt or Ginny Hultquist can provide DVDs or powerpoints for presentations.

• Musical presentation and reception for choir robes, bells, chimes, sound system.

Suggestions

• See suggestions above, under Care abounds in Communities.

• If you have a church that does not participate, call or go see the pastor. Invite a Financial Representative to go with you. With the new hymnals coming, all churches will need and want to use these funds. They can use money for hymns in 2006 and again in 2007. So that's right folks, turn that hemming and hawing into HYMNING and hawing!

• Contact your Council Treasurer, President, Stewardship or Property Committee chairs --- they always know where there is need!

• Pastors, Financial Representatives and the chapter or church member listings available online are great places to start to assess volunteer candidates.

• Look to church leaders and the "go-getters" in your church for more ideas, and to identify needs.

Take Stock In (Youth, Mission, Outreach)

• Sell stock shares (i.e. $25 per share) and issue stock certificates for people who want to invest in the youth, a mission trip, etc.. Invite stockholders to attend a post-event shareholders meeting to enjoy fellowship, refreshments and a DVD/slide presentation to see how their investment "grew" and experience its "value" from the eyewitness accounts of God's children serving God's children! Gathering theme can reflect the event (i.e. National Youth Gathering in San Antonio, TX, serve mex-tex food; decorate with hot peppers, sombreros, earthenware, reds, yellows, etc. ). Charlotte, N.C.

Look at What Chapter are Doing

At every Excel event we ask our chapter leaders to share a project that was meaningful to them or an idea that was helpful-here are some mentioned at the Excel events:

• Sponsoring an Advent supper in each church

• Beginning a 10,000 Villages store (very ambitious!)

• Sending cookies to troops overseas

• Cleaning up a drug infested park and turning it back into a neighborhood park

• Funding yarn for knitters of prayer shawls (this would be a work project, not fund-raiser)

• Buying bulletin boards for Thrivent info for each church

• Gift packages for poor mothers at a community hospital

• Katrina/Rita recovery trips to the gulf

• Ministry of Encouragement: Visiting every helping organization in the chapter to thank them for the work they do, which is often under-funded, thankless and difficult. They visited crisis ministries, food pantries, and alternative schools to let the staff know they are appreciated and recognized for the hard work they do.

• Providing Christmas/warm clothes for Katrina victim families

• Angel Tree project for gifts and Christmas party for children of incarcarated parents

• Octoberfest (complete with beer I am supposed to be sure to say!)

• Therapeutic horseback riding

• Carnival fun day

• Inviting all people back to the church who had family members baptized during the year and hand out Baptismal medallion. (invite FR to help present).

• Appreciation gift for church support staff. (operating funds)

• Appreciation dinner/luncheon for support staff. (operating funds)