charity opportunities for small parishes

[zebu]

My parish is quite small, we have about 25 adults and 20 children normally. We are looking for ways to serve the community around us in ways besides just giving money(we already do that). Does anyone have any ideas on how we could do community service given our small size?

[Tsarina]

I know of one mission that has a box in the foyer of there church where people put cans of food in it. The Priest then collects the box and takes it to the food bank so the poor have food to eat.

[choirfiend]

Contact local charities already in place and find out how you can help. There's plenty of work to be done for Habitat, meals on wheels, or any manner of charities that may already be active around you.

[Oblio]

I know of one mission that has a box in the foyer of there church where people put cans of food in it. The Priest then collects the box and takes it to the food bank so the poor have food to eat.
This is what we do, except your's truly runs it down to Loaves & Fishes when the basket gets full.

[Khaleas]

Just as a side note, IOCC has teamed up with Habitat for Humanity.

[zebu]

Oh yes...we know all about IOCC. My godmother and I, along with a man from our parish, a woman from one of the local Greek churches, and a Serbian priest are trying to get a local chapter of IOCC started.

[gzt]

well, it sort of depends on what sort of charitable activities exist in your city. I'm sure there are some worthy places that could use a couple helping hands a couple times a month. my parish about that size so we can't start some giant ministry all on our own, but there's this women's shelter that needs people to come in every once in a while to make the dinner for them and we can always manage to spare a couple people a couple times a month and we make it a point to regularly sign up. there are a few other things like that that can be done in our area. you might not be able to do much on your own as a parish, but you can piggy-back on other opportunities.