Dear St. Margaret’s Family,
Happy Fall! I want to begin by thanking all of you for your faith-full care of our community over the past year and a half. I am in awe of the ways we have touched the lives around us, and excited to be able to begin planning for community outreach programs for the coming year.
As you may remember, in March of 2020, just before the pandemic changed all of our plans and lives, the parish had begun to collect shampoo for the Spring Food Basket Program of the EHS Angel Network. When the pandemic hit, we suspended our collection efforts, and the Angel Network also modified their program for the basket distributions in order to keep everyone involved safe and healthy. This year, the Angel Network is doing one distribution of Holiday Food & Hygiene baskets for the fall and winter holidays. They are expecting to distribute 170 baskets to qualified families of students at Emmaus High School in early December.
With the support of Mo. Laura, and the Vestry, I have committed St. Margaret’s to resume our full support of this program for this basket distribution. Our full commitment is to provide shampoo for all 170 baskets to be distributed. Between now and December 5th, we will be collecting full-size bottles of shampoo, with a goal of 170 bottles. Please do not provide pump bottles (they get messy) or conditioner (except for 2 in 1 products). We already have a head start, thanks to people who purchased shampoo for the collection that we could not complete. Our current total stands at 65 bottles, which means we have 105 to go, with nearly two months to collect them.
Over the next several weeks, the Outreach team will begin working on plans to resume other community outreach programs such as our support of Groceries Plus (formerly the Emmaus Food Bank) and our Sharing Tree program.
I am eager to serve with all of you as we move forward through the coming months. Through our Outreach, our parish lives into the example of St. Margaret, whose care for those on the margins of her kingdom became her lasting legacy. And, as individuals, we live into our identity as reflected in our Baptismal Covenant – seeking and serving Christ in all people, loving our neighbors as ourselves, and respecting the dignity of every human.
Please feel free to reach out to me with any questions regarding the shampoo collection, or any of the programs we are working on resuming. I can be reached by phone at 484-553-1227, or by email at pengwn@ptd.net, or through St. Margaret’s Contact Form (below).
Blessings,
Jen Burkhardt, Parish Outreach Coordinator