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New Journey maintains a bin for the food bank at our church to which members contribute regularly. Each month the food bank lets us know what they are in need of so that we can target our food collection to fit their needs .
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During the hot summer months, New Journey members and friends make, deliver, and serve 600 sack lunches for homeless individuals and other vulnerable persons who come for heat respite at Grace Lutheran Church in central Phoenix.
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As a special Easter season project in 2022, New Journey members gathered bulk supplies of rice, beans, and flour – along with Northeast Valley Consortium ELCA partners (Ascension, Christ the Lord, Living Waters, New Covenant, and New Journey) – for the shelter for asylum seekers near Nogales, Mexico. We anticipate that gathering food supplies (as well as diapers, wipes, and feminine hygiene products) for Casa De La Misericordia will become an ongoing project of the Consortium group.
Our church members touch the lives of hundreds of neighbors locally, nationally and internationally.
We Help Feed the Hungry, an ELCA Grand Canyon Synod Priority
We Help Kids Succeed
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The Northeast Valley Consortium partners, on September 11, 2022, will prepare hygiene kits for teens and tweens, younger kids, and infants. More than 4000 kits are provided annually by Arizona Helping Hands to support Arizona’s 12,000 children in out-of-home care to be healthy and feel confident, particularly as they make transitions among multiple placements.
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Our August 2022 focus was to replenish the “Giving Gang Closet” (a resource for families in need) for East Mesa Imagine School, a publicly funded, non-profit charter school with whom we partner regularly. New Journey members collected school supplies for students and teachers to promote a successful year of learning.
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Members and friends of New Journey purchase Christmas and other Winter Holiday gifts for very need families from Imagine East Mesa. As a special surprise in 2021, our SewJourners also crafted new quilts for the single moms and the kids of our Angel families.
We Support Neighbors Here and Around the World
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As members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), we believe that God is calling us into the world, and that with generous, loving hands, we can together make a difference.
For 2022, New Journey members exceeded our Lenten social ministry goal by 30%, contributing funds for 12 environmentally friendly cook stoves and 17 ceramic water filters through the ECLA Good Gifts program. Framed by the congregation’s focus on “God’s Abundance” during the 5-week Lenten period, this project supported public health in the developing world.
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New Journey Lutheran participates annually in the Fountain Hills Make a Difference Day, serving neighbors in need. Volunteers from the faith community and other organizations assist residents by weeding and raking yards, cleaning and organizing garages, building wheelchair ramps for home-bound residents, and other projects. In 2020 and 2021, New Journey volunteers were part of groups who planted over 200 plants at the Town Hall and the Community Center.
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New Journey provides quilts and toiletries to Native American Connections NAC). NAC’s mission is improving the lives of individuals and families through Native American culturally appropriate behavioral health, affordable housing, and community development services. NAC owns and operates 18 sites throughout Central Phoenix offering a continuum of affordable housing and behavioral health services which touch the lives of over 6,000 individuals and families each year. NAC also receives meals assembled in the annual Food for Kidz food pack.
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With our Northeast Valley Consortium (NEVC) partners, New Journey helped to set up five apartments in Phoenix for families evacuated from Afghanistan during the U.S. withdrawal in August 2021. In addition, over subsequent months we helped to gather furnishings for 18 additional apartments and raised over $30,000 for Lutheran Social Services of the Southwest’s emergency fund, enabling additional translators and counselors to be hired to support some 500 evacuees who arrived and settled in Phoenix and Tucson. This work to house evacuees and refugees is an ongoing commitment of the NEVC.
