ECHO news for December

Click HERE to see a compilation of ECHO’s current needs … and CLICK HERE FOR ECHO’S AMAZING DISTRIBUTIONS FROM 2024!!!

Special announcement:

STUFF THE BUS
at Huntsman Blvd GIANT FOODS
on Saturday, January 18
from 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM
Learn more from the flyer shown HERE!
See also http://bit.ly/FfxStufftheBus.
***

Donations that cost ZERO … click HERE for info …

Click HERE to see how Target shoppers can help raise funds for ECHO …

Click HERE to find out what to do for a “Food Donation Option When You Can’t Come to ECHO”

ECHO desperately needs your help to help fill the shelves of their Food Pantry … Need info on donating? Call 703-569-7972 or go to https://www.echo-inc.org/needed-right-now for their current needs.

Need help? Call 703-569-9160 … To find out what ECHO has to offer its clients, click HERE for English and HERE for Spanish.

Donation Hours
M, Tu, W, Th, F - 9:30 AM to 12:30 PM
Tu, W, Th - 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM

Funerals and Memorials Info

St. Mark’s website now have a separate informational webpage for upcoming funerals and memorials. See it at https://www.stmarks-elca.org/funerals-memorials-info.

Don’t Let Your Giant Reward Points Expire!

Do you know you can use your points for other products besides gas? Right now you can get a dozen eggs for 200 points. If you don’t need them, or only need a half dozen, please consider donating them to Food For Others. Just mark the container as FFO and leave in the kitchen refrigerator. Thank you!

Pull POP tabs from Soda Cans!

… and place them in the narthex in the container shown at the left! Cindy Hausch-Booth is collecting pop tabs for Ronald McDonald House Charities, Greater Washington, DC! It's just so simple! Pop tabs are easy to collect and store and are less messy than collecting entire cans, and there is more concentrated aluminum in these tabs than in the cans, so we can get more money for something a lot smaller! 100% of the money we earn is used to offset the cost between the amount families are able to donate for their stay and our actual operating costs—a difference of about $197 a night. You can easily see that the little pull tab you used to throw away is very valuable to the guest families at our Houses.

Thank you for helping RMHCDC by “Pulling for the House!” Your pop tabs make a difference!

First Quarter Benevolence:
ECHO AND ST. MARK’S FOOD FOR OTHERS

Contributions from you to St. Mark’s benevolence fund for the 1st quarter of 2025 will be divided evenly between ECHO and St. Mark’s Food for Others.

See also “the latest info” on our Q1 benevolence on our Quarterly Benevolence webpage.

As a reminder, our quarterly benevolences are not covered through the regular offerings to the St. Mark’s operating budget. If you donate online, there is a Quarterly Benevolence button on our Vanco e-giving portal. If you make your donation at the offering plate or mail in a check, please make out the check to St. Mark’s Lutheran Church and annotate the check with "Quarterly Benevolence."

ESOL Classes at St. Mark's

Classes in the fall began Tuesday, September 12, 2023. Classes are Tuesdays and Thursdays, 7:00 PM-8:30 PM; cost of books is $45. There is a need for ESOL teachers as well as volunteers to provide childcare (perhaps high school students who need community service hours).

For more information, contact Yvette Moy at at ymoy@stmarks-elca.org.

YOU ARE INVITED …

** The Prayer Ministry invites anyone who is interested in committing to a renewed prayer life at St. Mark's to join us on Sundays after the service at 11:00 AM in the Fellowship Hall. Learn more HERE!!!

** Also, the "Watch and Pray" Lunch Bunch is scheduled for Tuesdays at NOON in the Fellowship Hall. Bring a bag lunch and come to share in prayer, food, and fellowship. All are welcome. Contact Ken Anderson for information.

** Everyone is invited to join the on-going Wednesday morning (10:00) “Watch and Pray” meeting via Zoom at https://us02web.zoom.us/j/894781064 (password 5800) 

For questions or more information contact Raelene Long (llong41@verizon.net) or Cherry Moser (clmoser@cox.net).

Connecting with Students at Lynbrook Elementary School

Hypothermia 2025

Hypothermia week at St. Mark’s is
Sunday, January 26, 2025 through
Sunday, February 2, 2025

There are many opportunities to donate your time to Hypothermia via SignUp Genius. See the latest
E-Messenger to easily view them all.

If you are interested in helping with this important ministry please contact Chris Colovos, Nicole Colovos or talk to one of the other Life Center board members: Pete Morrison, Dan Ancona, Larry Long, Patty Bruch, Kay Graff, Dave Appler, Trudy Stellar.

To Volunteer, Use SignUp Genius

Community Meals Are Back!

We have resumed our Community Meals, only on the first Sunday of the month at 1:30 PM, immediately following the Spanish service. EXCEPT for February!

For February, we WILL have one bilingual service at 11:00 AM on Sunday, February 9 to celebrate the Presentation of Our Lord. Our community meal will immediately follow in the Fellowship Hall. The education hour will begin at 9:45 AM, prior to the liturgy. — People have asked what they can bring. A sign-up sheet with some ideas will be in the narthex beginning this Sunday. 

What do we need? To start, (1) we need volunteers; and (2) we need prayers that God will (a) give us strength and wisdom as we recommence this effort, and (b) bless our efforts to satisfy not only physical hunger but real spiritual need.

Military Care Packages Collection: January 26 (or Anytime)

Thank you very much for all your support of this project during this past year—it does make such a difference to our deployed military folks to know they are supported.

We are pleased to have a recipient group with ties to our St. Mark's family for this end-of-January shipment: Albert Roddy, cousin of Sean Murphy. He and his shipmates are deployed for several months, serving on the USS Stout (DDG 55). Sean has been communicating with his cousin Al and reports that they like lots of things, including chips, beef jerky, cookies, trinkets, cards … and we know that everyone loves to get brownies! You are very clever in coming up with wonderful items that we love to send and they love to receive.

The "official" collection day will be January 26, but you also know you can donate items anytime; if during the week or on a non-collection Sunday, you can put items in the box labeled "Military Packages" on the second floor between the elevator and the office; on collection Sundays, we will have that same box in the narthex.

Thank you, thank you! 

Flower Committee

The Flower Committee needs new members. If you are interested in joining the flower committee to help “dress” the altar on Sundays, please contact Trudy Stellar. We will be happy to train you. Click HERE for more information!

2024 Flower Deditations: Click HERE for the form to dedicate flowers or one or more Sundays in 2024!

Flower Ministry

On Mondays and Tuesdays the Flower Ministry team delivers small arrangements made from the altar flowers to St. Mark's members who are sick or housebound. We are in need of more volunteers to deliver. Please contact Lance Quesenberry lques48@gmail.com or call 703-401-1500 if you would like to volunteer or would like to ask questions.

Food For Others is in need of extra food—and extra people on Tuesday evenings. Please bring non-parishable food to the Narthex.
Thank you!

The last several weeks, we have been seeing a big surge in demand for our FFO food distribution on Tuesdays. Our FFO pantry helps to provide protein in our food distribution and to provide food when all the fresh food runs out. The goods donated by the supermarkets are primarily fruits, vegetables, and carbohydrates, not protein. Your monetary contributions will help us purchase many identical canned goods so they can be efficiently stored.

The increase in demand for our FFO distribution is taxing on the teams who receive, organize, and distribute the items. If you can spare a few hours on a Tuesday afternoon at 5:00 PM-6:30 PM, please consider helping one of our four FFO teams. No experience necessary. If you can help, even just one week, it will help us navigate this surge we are experiencing in demand. For further questions, please contact Debbie Brown, Nan Ackerman, or anybody you know who participates in our FFO teams. 

We DO NOT NEED empty egg cartons AT THIS TIME; but we can always use canned proteins (canned tuna, canned chicken, canned beans, peanut butter, and such).

Please place your donations in the box in the narthex.

St. Mark’s continues to receive blessings of opportunities to help serve our neighbors. Our renewed outreach to the community is reaping benefits in new and renewed connections with the county, non-profits, and area churches - geared toward meeting the needs of our neighbors. Fairfax County Neighborhood and Community Services has reached out to St. Mark’s about connecting with children at Lynbrook through the GrandInvolve program. We expect to have someone speak about this volunteer program at Sunday services in the coming weeks. Seniors who register through this program sign up for an hour or two per week to spend at the school tutoring and mentoring. Please see flyer for more information about the program. We will have a sign-up sheet in the Narthex for those who are interested in learning more about this opportunity.