River Stone Christian Fellowship (Arnprior, ON) – Big Give 2020

Today’s event was another rousing success. The weather was beautiful. Lots of warmth and bright sunny skies. Although our numbers were down this year (we blame COVID-19) we were able to serve 175 ice cream cones and dishes. Many asked what was the catch or why? We were able to explain that this was just to bless this wonderful community of ours.
Our partners, Sarah (from the Flavour Container), and James and Tara (from the Gallery) all helped to make this day a resounding success. We are all looking forward to doing this again next year.

Here are some pics from the day!


Woodvale Pentecostal Church – Leah and Anne’s Big Give

It was such a lovely day!
We were very excited to prepare and deliver some things: cookies, tarts, Tim Hortons coffee and breakfast sandwiches and we also included a few Scripture tracts.
The first place we only saw two men pick up the box look around and wave and say thank you!
Next we went to Shepherds of good hope.
As soon we got out of the car with the box a man (they call him the sergeant) took the box, another man took the coffee all excited.
Within seconds we were surrounded by happy people all saying thank you, this is wonderful. God bless you.
We asked if we could take a photo and they were so happy and posed and insisted we be in it too.
It was humbling to see such gratefulness over such a small thing!
What a powerful experience that would never have occurred except for the Big Give!
We were so touched to be part of it all!


Ottawa Chinese Alliance, St. Luke’s Anglican & Sommerset West Health – Big Give 2020

As a local church (22 Eccles Street) within the Somerset West community, we had been praying about how to bless those in our midst with the love of Christ, especially during this trying time. This year, we had an opportunity to partner with St. Luke’s and Somerset West Community Health Centre (SWCHC) to provide personal care packages for their clients within the Somerset community area. We praise God that we were able to collect over 300 care packages along with over $2000 in gift cards that were delivered to St. Lukes and SWCHC to bless their clients.

Here are a few pics…



Greenbelt Baptist Church

This year, we did a socially distanced Donation Caravan around the community with fun cars, costumes and entertainment. We pick up items from residents to donate to local organizations (food, and furniture). Flyers were delivered in advance to notify people in that neighbourhood. Check out our video!


West Island (Montreal) Big Give 2020

Although this year was a lot less ‘flashy’ than other years, we have a deep sense of God on the move as we served our community together.
Here are some of the things the West Island network of churches did on June 6th
Food Drive: We had 8 churches collecting food for the food drive. Food was then brought to Westside Gathering at 2pm and be distributed to food banks from there.
Seniors Gift Bags: We had 5 churches (Bethel, Westview, WI United Pentecostal, St. Michaels and Oasis) make gift bags for senior recipients of Meals on Wheels. We spoke with the coordinator they were thrilled and thankful for this initiative.
Bike Clinic: Lakeside Heights Baptist Church did a FREE bike clinic from 9am-3pm.
Thank You Cards: Our CAITeam wrote Thank You cards to senior homes and grocery stores in the WI on behalf of the West Island Network of churches letting them know that we are praying for them in this difficult and busy season.
Prayer Walking: Bethel Church is mobilizing prayer walks around senior homes.
Here is a video of how it all went:

 


First Presbyterian Church Brockville

We prepared “Blessing Bags” containing different items for clients of our local food bank.  For families, we included items for the children (colouring books and crayons, bubbles, hard candy, personal care items).  For singles, couples and seniors, we made up bags with personal care items, candy, and so forth.  Each bag contained a handwritten postcard from our church letting the recipient know that we are thinking about them and praying for them, and if they would like additional pastoral care, to contact us.  We consulted with our local food bank and they gave us suggestions for items to include in the bags. The Food Bank distributed the bags to their clients on our behalf.

We also asked folks in our congregation to pray for all who were blessed by the Big Give on June 6th.

 

 


Glad Tidings Perth Big Give 2020

Wow, what a privilege to be part of the 2020 Big Give.

The Big Give Team of Glad Tidings Church in Perth,Ont. encouraged our congregation to support a couple of initiatives to demonstrate the radical generosity to our community thru acts of kindness.

1. Lanark Highlands Food Pantry in Lanark. Through generous donations of food from our local congregation we were able to give approximately 1150 lbs or 522 kilograms of needed products such as food ,paper products etc. We also had a couple of ladies in our congregation make cloth face masks.
2. We also encouraged people to ask God – to lay on our heart a person or people group that we could bless with gift cards ranging from $5 – $50 or more. Many people gave to our frontline workers such as custodians at the local hospital, lab techs, registration clerks, postal workers, grocery clerks, garbage/recycle collectors, etc. Many gave grocery cards. We had lots of responses from people who said how much they appreciated the kindness . There were many good conversations around the act of giving from the heart.
3. A Youth bike was also donated early in the year to give away at the Big Give. Our local newspaper helped us get the word out and we drew a winning name.

 


Big Give 2020 Outreach from Pickering Pentecostal Church

With the ongoing COVID-19 restrictions we had to dramatically alter our plans for the 2020 Big Give outreach and focused on two viable projects: to collect food for local food banks and to give special appreciation with $10 Tim’s Cards in nice thank you notes delivered  to our local first responders.
FOOD DRIVE:
 
We hosted two days of food drives at our church, posted flyers in the community and promoted them on social media and our church website.
The response was excellent from our church family with many volunteers participating over both days and the congregation bringing enough food to fill hundreds of boxes. We decided to pre-sort the food and label each box as it came in so that the food banks could easily use it once their quarantine period was completed.
We were able to support the Salvation Army Food Bank in Ajax, St Pauls on the Hill Food Bank in Pickering and the Scott Mission Food Bank in Toronto/Scarborough with this initiative.

 

 

FIRST RESPONDERS APPRECIATION: 
Karen & Dan Thorogood delivered the thank you cards to some very happy first responders, fire stations and paramedic stations in Pickering.
We have additional cards we hope to deliver once the stations in Ajax are okay to receive them.

 

 

This is our fourth year of participating with the Big Give, each year has been a little bit different but has impacted our community in multiple ways even with the scaled down version this year.

Our hope is to continue to be part of this outreach to bless our local community in creative ways in 2021 and thank the national volunteer committee for all that you do to help facilitate it.