Cornerstone District News
Westfield First Reaches Out with Reverse Advent Calendar
January 22, 2020 / By Cathy Hall / .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
The First United Methodist Church of Westfield's Mission and Outreach team started a project on December 1, 2019, the Reverse Advent Calendar project. The idea behind the project was to give an item every day of Advent that would go to the Westfield Community Food Pantry. Using a list of items provided by the Food Pantry, calendar users were encouraged to put the item listed for each day in a box or bag. At the end of Advent, faithful users had collected 24+ items for the Food Pantry! The church not only challenged their congregation, but the Westfield community and all United Methodist Churches in the Cornerstone District.
Donated items were blessed during the January 5 worship service at Westfield First. Following the service many volunteers from the church and community came to help move, sort and shelve the donations. More than 1,500 items were donated by the Westfield First congregation; with donations from other churches and the community, well over 2,000 items were donated to the Westfield Community Food Pantry through this project.
On behalf of the Westfield First Mission and Outreach Team, thank you to everyone involved in this project from beginning to end - those who coordinated the project, those who donated to the project and those who helped carry, sort and shelve all of those donations.