Southwest Berks County Chapter

Two page newsletter: Winter 2012 Newsletter

Two page newsletter: Winter 2012 Newsletter

Southwest Berks County Chapter, Winter Newsletter

Where have we been?

The Board of Directors of your chapter wanted to share with you what we have accomplished over the past year. Our Care Abounds in Communities disbursed over $58,000 to support projects that ranged from Family Promise, Scholarships for PA Outstanding Young Women, the Literacy Council, Tree of Remembrance for the Berks Visiting Nurses, local libraries, historical societies, food pantries, mission trips, day camps, Relay for Life teams, school book bags, health kits for Haiti, Wells for Salvador, Pancreatic Cancer Support, Opportunity House meals, and other hands on projects.

Of the completed activities $22,629 went to Lutheran organizations and $34,030 went to non-Lutheran Organizations. A total of 31 requests were processed, approved and reported on. Although many of our congregations put in requests, there are still several who do not. We ask why not? How can we help you in sharing these funds?

The Chapter also produced and supported the Rise and Shine musical event as well as provided a picnic with an educational presentation and the election meeting with education and secure shredding of documents for members. Food was provided at all three of these events.

Where are we going in 2012?

We have a less Care Abounds in Communities funding for 2012. Your board is currently working on defining our priorities to apply in the reviewing and approving of funding requests. We have had long discussions, which will continue, as to what our priorities should be in directing the funds for our chapter.

Should preference go to poverty issues, such as food pantries and housing or should we look at duplication of funding such as multiple requests for one organizations. We would love to hear from you, our members, to help us assist in making these decisions.

When we review requests for funding we will be looking at the number of volunteer hours that the activity will log. Quite often we do not give ourselves enough credit for the time it takes to plan, shop, communicate, present, clean up and evaluate our activities.

We also will be assisting the hosting of the Synod Assembly on June 15th and 16th in Reading. We will be looking for volunteers to help man any receptions that we host. We also will be asking any Youth who have received funding from our Chapter to assist with a service project. There will be more information forthcoming on this.

Who Will be Leading this Year!

We want to recognize our Board leaders for 2012. Our new President is Pastor Bruce Osterhout, our Vice President is Pastor Don Simmons, Pat Bright continues as our Records Director, Steve Fellman continues as our Financial Director, Marlene Harlow continues as our Director of Congregational Advocates, Kathie Holm continues as Communications Director and Alice Hemibach continues as our Events Coordinator.

Dennis Heimbach will continue as our Thrivent Builds Chapter Specialist. We would like to give a warm welcome to Janice Buckwalter as our new Community Service Team Director. This is an extremely hard working core of volunteer leaders who help to make our Chapter the success it is, and will be.

To Our Congregational Advocates

Marlene has done a fantastic job in reaching out and assisting congregations in enrolling and educating our congregational advocates. She is making an effort to have the advocates understand the process of applying their Choice Dollars to their congregation or organization they select. We have seen a steady increase in congregations utilizing this very effective means of choosing where their dollars go to support the organizations of their choice.

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.