Outreach
From our sweaty efforts to create desirable housing here in town to filling Heifer Arks with coins for people elsewhere; from monthly journeys to Plainfield to serve food at Grace’s Kitchen to weekly truckloads of food driven to Somerville: in all of it we find Jesus. Come share in our common life of service on the Mountain, and join us as head down the Mountain, seeking the God who continually seeks us, and serving the Lord who will stop at nothing to serve us.
Fostering Love
First Night Bags for CASA SHaW
Children being placed in the Foster System because of abuse and/or neglect must usually leave their homes immediately. Often they are offered not much more than a garbage bag into which they may hastily put their personal belongings.
Fostering Love provides these children with a tiny bit of dignity and hopefully shows them that the world around them loves them during this most difficult time.
Each year during the season of Advent, we collect items for Fostering Love, which benefits foster children supported by CASA SHaW (Court Appointed Special Advocate of Somerset, Hunterdon and Warren counties).
Our participation includes the donation of specific items for the bags and their assembly.
For more information and to help: Kathy Tober
Giving Garden at Ross Farm
Stalwart gardeners from St John on the Mountain and neighboring churches plant, tend, and gather the produce at the Giving Garden. In cooperation with the Friends of the Ross Farm and several community groups, we help plant the seeds, weed and water, and we reap the fruits of our labor.
We take the fresh vegetables to the local food banks where they go right onto the tables of our neighbors. You are always invited to dig, plant, weed and harvest the crops in the peace of this beautiful place.
Click here for info on how to help at the Giving Garden.
Food Bank Network of Somerset County at Somerville
The mission of The Food Bank Network is to distribute food and to provide other basic human needs to those less fortunate in our community in a manner which recognizes and advances self worth and human dignity.
SJOTM has staffed the Somerville Food Bank in the months of November and April for decades. Our Sunday school, Confirmation Class and many families have traditions of service that have existed for generations. Our collections of hams, turkeys and lasagna back on the Mountain are legendary. You are invited to participate physically or financially.
For more information, please contact Sue Kennedy
Grace's Kitchen in Plainfield
The current reality requires that cold sack lunches be assembled by staff and distributed outside of Grace Church in Plainfield. Previously, we have prepared and served hot, nutritious lunches for the hungry of Plainfield for many years. Many of our friends find themselves without sufficient funds to buy food during the last five days of every month. SJOTM staffs the kitchen whenever the last Friday is a within those last five days. Service time is between about 10 am and 2 pm. We await the reopening of the kitchen and the return of hot meals and hospitality.
For more information, please contact Graham Argent-Belcher
Preschool Advantage
By the age of three, children from lower income families are already developmentally behind their more affluent peers. Research shows that the most effective way to equalize that gap is to give children a quality preschool education so they can enter kindergarten ready to learn and succeed. Children who attend a quality preschool grow up to be better educated, interact better with others, are healthier, and have higher economic productivity than those who don’t get that opportunity.
SJOTM financially supports the mission of Preschool Advantage in two ways. We stand ready to financially support at least two students at SJ Nursery School through our Scholarship Fund. Also, we donate an amount equal to one student's tuition to PA each year to be used anywhere..
Homesharing Inc.
Homesharing Inc. matches people who are seeking homes to those who have room to accommodate such seekers. Many older people desire to stay in their family homes but need assistance with finance or basic needs such as shopping or cleaning. Each arrangement is unique and partners are carefully matched. Members of SJOTM have been board members and volunteers with the Homesharing program for over 20 years.