You may have noticed that lately we’ve been doing an extra amount of good things for people in our community. Our faith family has always been good at doing good in the community, with individual members donating their time and resources to a variety of causes in the St. Petersburg area and beyond, even across the world.

Today we’d like to highlight and report on two recent efforts: The Back-to-School Drive and the Girl Scout Bunnies for Foster Children Project.

First, the school supplies. As usual, coordinated by our own Sallie O’Neill and in partnership with Lutheran Services of Florida, LCC really pulled out all the stops to make sure that children in our community who needed a little help getting ready for the new school year had what they needed to be successful. On Sunday, August 4, during the worship hour at 9 AM, we displayed and blessed backpacks, pencils, pens, glue, crayons, paper, notebooks, binders, and so many, many more items. Getting ready for a new school year is stressful enough for parents and children, so imagine how hard it is for parents who don’t have the resources to provide all the supplies the schools require for their children. Then imagine the smile on their faces when they were handed exactly what their kids needed. Our LCC members were successful in raising almost $1,700.00 in school supplies and including twenty backpacks which were delivered to the Pinellas Foster Care and Diversion Services program. 

But then only one week later, LCC shined brightly once again when we displayed and blessed the stuffed bunnies for Sophia Luchsinger-Perez’s Girl Scout project. With the help of Barbara Fredericks and several other church members and friends, Sophia was able to deliver 32 bunnies from LCC, three from her own friends and seven that were sewn by family members and others. The purpose of the bunnies is that they will be given to children in crisis situations as they enter into foster care. The plush bunnies bring warmth and comfort to scared children, and the fact that the bunnies were crafted with love and prayer, and then blessed during worship, guarantees that they will help kids when they need it the most.

So a big thank you to everyone who supported and donated to these two most recent outreach efforts. We look forward to our next outreach project, the God’s Work, Our Hands Cookies for First Responders Project, which kicks off this week. Watch for ads in the newsletter, signs in the narthex and announcements during worship to learn more. Lynn Cropper has graciously agreed to head the campaign again this year, so if you have any questions you may certainly contact her.