Family Promise Chicago North Shore provides services for homeless families in transition. A Family Promise network utilizing religious facilities and volunteers is a cost efficient way to provide children and families with shelter, hospitality, nutritious meals, and to keep children attending school in the same class as before their family faced a homeless situation. We will host another week from February 19 - 26, 2012.

The families will come every evening at 6pm for dinner and stay overnight. In the morning they will be taken back to the Day Center where the children will be taken to school and parents will receive job placement counseling. We need volunteers to provide dinners, help with homework, visit with the families in the evenings, set up sleeping areas, provide simple breakfast and lunch foods, or plan a pizza party or craft activity. The whole family can volunteer together! Even one hour of volunteering can work wonders. Basic kindness can change bad days to good ones. It can even transform lives.

To volunteer for Family Promise at Lutheran Church of the Ascension, please contact Norma Taylor(847-946-6111, normataylor@live.com), sign up on the bulletin board or sign up here.

On the day of the Big Game, we will again ask for donations of cans of soup or cash to benefit hungry people in our community.  For further information, please contact Luke Riehle. 

On Sunday, Monday and Thursday of each week Ascension volunteers pick up unsold pastries from the Starbucks located in the Willow Festival Shopping Center.  They bag and freeze the pastries for later distribution to the clients of Northfield Township Food Pantry or A Just Harvest Community Kitchen.  Additional help is needed to expand this ministry.  To volunteer for a shift, please contact Kristin Merrill (847-853-8941, kmerrill@gmail.com) Patty Haskins (309-236-5256, haskinspa@yahoo.com).

Formerly named the Good News Community Kitchen, this Rogers Park ministry serves a hot meal to 150-200 people every night of the year. Ascension volunteers purchase food, help prepare it and serve on the third Tuesday of each month.  Volunteers meet at church at 3:45 and return at approximately 7:15. All people above age twelve are welcome to participate.  Youth between the ages of 12 and 18 can find a copy of the needed permission slip on the Youth Ministry page.   To purchase food or to go to the kitchen on the third Tuesday of any month, sign up on the bulletin board, contact Irm Clarborne (847-256-3302, Born19@voyager.net).

Ascension demonstrates concern for hunger and hungry people by participating in the Glenbrook CROP walk.  Pledges and donations obtained by walkers in the 1K, 3K, or 5K walk support international hunger alleviation as well as the local needs of the Northfield Township Food Pantry. 

Thank you to those who generously supported our Crop Walk on October 16th.  Total collected $620.

The Night Ministry is an organization that works with youth and adults in north Chicago neighborhoods who face multiple, complex challenges including homelessness, poverty, abuse, loneliness, and neglect. Our congregation's participation began in the autumn of 2011.  Through overwhelming church support we were able to make and fill 100 Christmas Stockings.  These stockings, full of hygiene and other items necessary for life on the streets of Chicago, were delivered to the Night Ministry, who in turn distributed them, with others, to a total of approximately 1200 needy youth and adults.

But homelessness is not seasonal and we are now continually collecting items in the basket next to the food pantry bin in the Fellowship Hall with the list provided.  These items will help us to help supply the much needed hygiene kits for their Health Outreach Bus to distribute and to get a head start on next year's stocking project!

To volunteer or get more information about The Night Ministry, contact Martha Dahl (847-251-1450, mjdahlhouse@sbcglobal.net) or Patty Haskins (309-236-5256, haskinspa@yahoo.com). 

Each year Ascension pairs with Bethel New Life to help bring Christmas to families and seniors in Chicago’s Garfield Park neighborhood.
 
In 2011, Ascension families “adopted” fourteen seniors, providing a grocery gift card and much needed winter clothing for seniors in Bethel’s programs.  Ascension families and members of the community also purchased numerous toys, clothes, and household items for Bethel’s Christmas Store, allowing families to buy gifts for a fraction of the cost of going to a retail store.  Proceeds from the Christmas Store benefited the West side’s Al Raby High School.
 
To keep the Bethel program going for Christmas 2012, a new coordinator is needed!

As Ascension’s liaison with Bethel, you will be communicating with Bethel staff in the fall regarding the number of seniors to be adopted, coordinating Bethel’s visit to Ascension for a Temple Talk in the fall/winter, coordinating a delivery date for Ascension’s donations in December, and attending a kick-off meeting and a follow-up meeting with Bethel staff.  On the Ascension side, you will create a display board for the congregation to “adopt” for seniors, coordinate volunteers from Ascension to deliver donations to Bethel and work at the Christmas Store, write related announcements for the Witness and bulletin, and attend monthly Service Ministries meetings at Ascension. Contact Gail or Alice for more information.