East King County Chapter

Four page newsletter: East King County Chapter News - Summer 2011

Four page newsletter: East King County Chapter News - Summer 2011

East King County Chapter, Summer 2011 News

SAVE THE DATE: Take Me Out to the Ballgame

Saturday, August 27, 2011 at 7:10pm 100 Thrivent Financial for Lutherans friends will be treated to baseball and dinner at Mariner's Stadium. See the Seattle Mariners take on the Chicago White Sox and hopefully score! This event is sponsored by your East King County Chapter of Thrivent Financial for Lutherans. Thrivent members and their guests will receive a ticket, as well as a complimentary box lunch. The new meeting area, "Above the Bull Pen" has been reserved from 5pm until game time to have our pregame meal all together and watch the players warming up. Contact your Thrivent congregational advocate, or send an e-mail to chmcam@comcast.net or call Cindy Martin at 206-236-5250 with your name, address, and how many tickets you need (up to 4 per family) and we will send you info and tickets via the mail. Prizes and fun will be abundant, so be sure to put this on your calender and join us. We appreciate our hard working Thrivent members and want to offer you an evening of all-American fun with your family and friends. Tickets will be given out on a first come, first serve basis, so don't delay! It truly is summer in Seattle, despite the gray skies, so let's gather together and cheer on our Mariners!

We are asking each person to help stock the shelves of local food banks in the slow summer months. Please bring a jar of peanut butter, a box of cereal, or a can of hearty soup to be donated.

Contact your congregational advocate or the chapter (eastkingcochapter@yahoo.com) for more information!

Sharing Some Summer Fun

Also in the baseball and fun mode, your Thrivent East King County Board has made a commitment to help some kids in need make a fun summer memory with their families. Twenty tickets will be donated to the Everett Aquasox "Swing for Kids Program" to enable kids from the Starlight Children's Foundation Northwest to come to a game for free. For more than 25 years, Starlight Children's Foundation, co-founded by movie director Steven Spielberg, has been dedicated to improving the quality of life for children with chronic and life-threatening illnesses and life-altering injuries by providing entertainment, education and family activities that help them cope with the pain, fear and isolation of prolonged illness.
A great way to do that is being out on a (warm?)summer day and hearing the national anthem sung and those magic words that start it all: "Play Ball!"

Tornado Torn South Needs YOU !

Recent severe flooding in North Dakota and South Dakota has prompted Thrivent Financial to include them as eligible for the 2011 Severe Spring Storm disaster assistance funding. You and your church are invited and encouraged to Pass the Hat or have a "coffee hour collection" to send to families in need still in the aftermath and rebuilding stage following the severe storms and devastating tornadoes that struck this spring. After your fundraiser, big or small, write one check to the Thrivent East King County Chapter. We will send it on to be matched, one dollar for every 2 dollars raised, and sent to one of four Lutheran based disaster relief organizations.

The deadline for this effort has been extended to Sept. 1, 2011. The process for planning, conducting and reporting national disaster response activities remains the same. (See Conducting a National Chapter Response Fund-raiser page on Thrivent.com for details.)

We encourage churches and their congregational advocates to work with members to raise funds through the national chapter disaster response. Remember, for every $2 received, Thrivent Financial will provide an additional $1, up to $250,000. That means we can be part of sending a very helpful $750,000 to folks still trying to get their lives back on track. Let's see what we can do together to help our neighbors.

We've Been Busy!

Your East King County Chapter has been busy with receiving and processing requests for funding for worthy and fun projects this spring. So far we have given out half our Thrivent allotted funds, roughly $20,000 dollars, to projects ranging from quilt making to park building, rummage sales to food drives, school supply kits to mission trips. This means we still have a bunch (!) of money to award to your worthy project, so be sure to get your paperwork completed and submitted to us for review. For assistance, talk to your church's advocate and get planning. Projects need to be submitted by our October 5th board meeting so we can close out our year. Be creative, be generous and have fun! If you like working with others and have a desire to reach out to those in need, Thrivent Financial for Lutherans can help. Funding is available for members to purchase materials for hands-on service activities benefiting individuals, families or communities.

So, if you are handy with a hammer, love landscaping, notice that sewing or knitting makes you smile, or you have another talent to share with others, why not partner with other Thrivent Financial members to make an impact in your community?

For example, a wheelchair ramp is so much more than wood and nails. For a wheelchair user, a ramp represents accessibility to life outside the house — to community, friends and family — and even to living independently.

Building a wheelchair ramp is only one example of the impact a little teamwork can have on someone's life. Can you think of other needs in your community and other ways you might be able to make an impact? Call your chapter leadership board for more information.

Are you available? You can make a difference!

Imagine yourself as part of a group of caring people with the opportunity to decide how best to use funding that benefits people in need and your community. Imagine being able to increase the impact that money has through community involvement, awareness, additional funds raised and the caring work of many hands. And imagine being able to help Thrivent Financial members come together for charitable, educational and social purposes.

Chapter leaders with the East King County Chapter of Thrivent Financial for Lutherans do just that! And with chapter leader elections just around the corner, the time to get involved is NOW! Our chapter will have (several) leadership opportunities for next year. The only requirements are: being a Thrivent Financial member; a desire to help people; and five to 15 hours per month volunteer time (depending on the position).

We very much need you on the chapter leadership board—without a full board, our chapter will not qualify for the funding that helps people and our community. Help us take full advantage of this unique opportunity to significantly impact our community and contact Cindy Martin (chmcam@comcast.net or 206-236-5250) today to find out more or add your name to the election ballot.

If serving on the chapter leadership board does not work for you but you'd like to be involved or volunteer in some capacity, there are many other volunteer opportunities, both short-term and longer-term, available as well. Please contact us and we'll describe how you can make a difference through the Thrivent chapter system in a way that fits into your schedule.

And the snacks at the meetings (once a month) are FABULOUS!!

For members, by members.
This newsletter was written by volunteer leaders of your local Thrivent Financial for Lutherans Chapter to keep you informed of chapter news. If you have any questions and/or comments about the content of this newsletter or would like to learn more about chapter activities being planned in your area, please contact one of your chapter leaders. Go to Thrivent.com, click on Locate a Chapter, enter your ZIP Code and click on your chapter's name.