LC Impact Suggestions

The below projects have all been taken up by Life Communities recently. Feel free to use this list for inspiration as your group decides how you might impact your community for Christ.

Host, support, or fund a missionary partner

Several of our Life Communities host, correspond with, and/or fund a missionary partner. If interested, please contact Elsie at ekitchen@grace.org or 781-862-8351 x222.

Serve in social outreach effort (soup kitchen, homeless shelter, prison, etc.)

• Cooked for Kingston House/Boston Rescue Mission
• Building relationships at House of Hope in Lynn
• Served at local homeless ministry (1269 Café)
• Men serve quarterly at Bridge House
• Made blankets for All Girls Allowed
• On a bi-monthly basis, we cook and serve at Malden’s Bread of Life.
• Once a month, we provide and share a meal with the men and women at Place of Promise, and do a Bible study with them.
• Hosted a Christmas gift/wrapping party to support a women's shelter
• Hosted a diaper drive to support an unplanned pregnancy shelter
• Valentine party with individual gift & flowers for each resident at Place of Promise
• Hosted a yard sale for Teen Challenge
• Contacted a local group that helps homeless people and volunteered to serve dinner for the homeless on a monthly basis. We also now have the opportunity to take some of them to GC.
• Prepared monthly dinners for International Student Ministry
• Purchased turkeys for local food shelter for Thanksgiving
• "Adopted" a family for Christmas through WHEAT, a local outreach network where we purchased gifts for the family's children
• We make and donate food for events for Hagar's Sisters
• Every 4^th Saturday we go to downtown Boston to serve with Fire's ministry to the homeless.  We give clothes and toiletries to needy and homeless folks while engaging them in conversations about God/ praying for them.
• Angel Tree (including personal delivery/family visit)

Serve in the local community

• Provided meals and support (financial) to a family who lost a 16-year-old to chronic illness.
• Cooked food for a family whose mother passed away
• Take turns to provide childcare for a sister who is undergoing chemotherapy for cancer
• We "adopted a room" at New Life Home in Manchester, NH, and completely revamped the bedroom of several of their residents.
• Made and delivered valentines to the nursing home
• Made Easter baskets for individuals in a care facility and spent a couple of hours with them, because there were folks who didn't have visitors for Easter
• Provided meals for new parents
• We focus on service to widows and have three woman we help regularly—mostly around yard work
• We serve with the Interfaith Garden once a month
• We hosted an event at a low income senior housing project in Chelsea.  We enjoyed doing a variety of arts and crafts with the residents and provide lunch and a BINGO party.  It was a huge success.
• Red Cross Blood Drive at Grace
• Made cards and visited Bedford VA hospital
• Tutoring sessions at a school in Mattapan, teaching math and ESL on Saturdays
• Support and tutor students of a naturalization (U.S. citizenship) class in Chinatown
• Trotter school project
• Helped with yard work for an elderly person and a single mom
• Made dinners for an expecting couple
• Outreach to seniors at the senior center in Billerica
• Car wash
• Home improvement projects for those in need
• Pulled weeds in Lincoln initiated by Town Officials
• Volunteered at meal kitchen
• Spent several Saturday mornings helping a person in need within Melrose
• Christmas Carol singing and worship services at nursing home
• We have set up a relationship with a small, local nursing home for regular visitation
• Various clean-up projects
• Assisting family move
• Prepared holiday baskets for local food pantry
• Yard raking in neighborhoods and for widows
• We've helped a few families in need by painting, contributing money
• Support a town planting project in the town of Reading
• We volunteered at Habitat for Humanity together
• Offered to assist elderly Grace members with yard work
• Do project/yard work for widows, typically 2-3 times per year
• We did an "Urban Weekend" in Boston. We were hosted by a couple who lead an intentional community doing outreach in the Uphams Corner neighborhood.
• We spent some time visiting the neighborhood, studying some of Jesus' parables on the Kingdom, and playing with some neighborhood children.

Help a missions agency in relief efforts, fundraisers, projects, etc.

• We filled approximately 13 backpacks for Little Samaritan Mission for Moldova.
• Sent school supplies to Malawi
• Good Samaritan shoe boxes at Christmas
• Yard sale (raised >$1100) for Salvation Army to send 3 homeless girls to summer camp
• Group members went on a missions trip
• We supported a Guatemala orphanage for an upcoming Wheaton/Westmont summer trip that my daughter is part of
• Covering the educational costs for a needy student in the third world
• Made Valentines for special celebration for girls at City of Hope (home for former street children) in Brazil
• Operation Christmas Child
• Group sponsors a World Vision Child
• Donation to World Vision
• We did a fund raiser and were blessed in our ability to provide a village of World's Vision's choice with a clean water pump/well system.
• We host an annual fundraiser to support the charity organization of our choosing
• We hosted an awareness event with a guest speaker from Amirah House
• Supported a Haiti orphan
• Rallying around Nepal and the work spearheaded by the Raticheks, including supporting a boy’s education

Host an outreach event (bowling party, picnic, game night, etc.)

• Once a month we host a movie/fellowship/potluck night and invite friends, co-workers, neighbors, etc.
• We just hosted a 5 week Alpha course that allowed the people of our LC to bring their friends/ family who wouldn't necessarily come to church or a Bible study.
• Collaborated with the larger Fire community on invitational-style events (volleyball, BBQ, etc.)
• We have a lot of outreach events for people of the LC to bring their friends who don't necessarily come to church: game night, family feud, apple picking etc.
• Most of the folks in our Bible study are continually inviting people to our potlucks and to our studies and to our church events
• Baby dinners for a member's non-Christian daughter
• Our focus tends to be on unsaved family members so we host social events & invite friends, neighbors and family

Volunteer together at a GC event

• Global Awareness Week
• Spring Serve
• Helped out at the art receptions held at Grace
• WinterBlast and Alpha
• Painted GC@Wilmington Kidstown
• We regularly serve at the ESOL dinner nights
• Our LC helps the translation desk on Sundays
• Work parties to paint/clean/construct at the Wilmington Campus

And cover all impact efforts in prayer