Church-wide Missions

The churches of WARM direct a portion of contributions each month to various missions, as well as collecting monies and goods for various groups.

For February, 2020:

• Crystal Lake UMC is doing a sock drive for Northcott Neighborhood House in Milwaukee (see below for more information on this organization)
• Parfreyville UMC is directing mission offerings to Harvest of Hope (see below for more information)
• First UMC is collecting donations of peanut butter to be given to the Waupaca Area Food Pantry.

Northcott Neighborhood House

This organization is a multipurpose community center created by the United Methodist Church in 1961.

We provide education, employment opportunities and basic necessities to youth, families and senior citizens in the Milwaukee area.

How did “Northcott” get started? It was created by a precursor group to what is now United Methodist Women, when they were seeking to establish a service project in Milwaukee back in the 1960s. The center was named for Bishop and Mrs. Northcott to honor their efforts on the part of Wisconsin Methodism. It receives some support from the Global Ministries of the United Methodist Church, but is still a mission supported by many chapters of United Methodist Women (including Parfreyville).

What is Northcott? Northcott is a multipurpose community center serving more than 10,000 community residents each year. Its mission and goals are:

· to empower families to meet survival needs and provide good parenting skills,

· to provide a safe place for youth as well as recreational and skill-building activities—after school, on Saturdays, and in the summer, and

· to provide the community with space, activities and opportunities to engage in community building and crime prevention.

What does Northcott offer? Emergency services (including a food pantry, clothes closet, commodity distribution), referral services, health fairs, employment services and training, especially building trades for young men. GED classes, youth services such as after school sports and arts programs, community learning center, leadership training, community development work, and prevention programs relating to smoking, drug and alcohol abuse, and pregnancy. Some of the paid employees are people whose first contact with Northcott was as a recipient of services. They appreciated what Northcott did for their life and became volunteers, working their way into paid employment to help others.

Christ’s message is present and visible in all that Northcott provides, and Bible study and other instruction is available, but the doors are open to anyone in the community, regardless of belief or religious affiliation. Northcott’s informational brochure will be posted on the Mission Committee bulletin board for the month of February for anyone desiring more information!

Why Northcott? Those of us lucky enough to live a peaceful, rural life, may find it hard to imagine the challenges faced by our brothers and sisters in urban Milwaukee. Poverty, gun violence, unemployment and lack of opportunity, dwindling resources, racism, and schools trying to educate during such turbulence are just some of the issues. In some cases, intercity Milwaukee is like a foreign country to us. The care that PUMC has extended over the years (monetary support, chicken drive, donations of coats, mittens, socks, etc.) are tangible expressions of the flow of God’s love, the “healing stream” in our mission statement.

Learn more at their website https://northcotthouse.org/

Harvest of Hope

February is a key month for this crisis response organization so that they are able to help farmers purchase seed and supplies needed in time for the growing season. In other words, funding needs to be in place long before the tractor starts working the soil. So, in the midst of winter, let us think of spring, and honor farmers and the strong influence of agriculture in this state and our own rural community.

Farming has changed drastically in recent history, with many farm families struggling due to low commodity prices, high costs of inputs, global market uncertainties, weather disasters and changing climate. When farms fail, it means not just the loss of a job but of land, home, hopes and dreams…and self-esteem. And communities feel this change of culture and loss of income to businesses and the tax base.

The Harvest of Hope Fund was created in January 1986 to help people of faith take a stand in support of Wisconsin’s family farmers. Since its inception, the fund has generated and dispersed over 1,650 gifts totaling more than $1,070,000 that have been granted to Wisconsin farm families in crisis. The fund provides monies to farms in need of financial assistance for spring planting or to meet emergency needs for food, fuel, medical or veterinary expenses, house or barn fires, electrical cutoffs, machine repair, climatic problems (drought, flooding, frost and hail), overdue taxes or other critical expenses.

Harvest of Hope is sponsored and administered by the Madison Christian Community, an ecumenical, multi-denominational partnership that includes the UMC. It is under the umbrella of the “Food, Faith and Farming Network” (previously called the Churches’ Center for Land and People).

If you are a farm family in need of assistance, there are brochures at PUMC for contact information, or go to this website for the application form: https://www.madisonchristiancommunity.org/harvest_of_hope.aspx. Others in this very community have received help, so you can be sure that our donations do have an impact, maybe even close to home.