Athens United Methodist Church Ministries
Athens United Methodist Church is a very active church with many opportunities to get involved not only with the church but with the community and beyond as well.
Music Ministry:
Sanctuary Choir praises God through song each Sunday at the 10 am worship service, as well as special services around Easter and Christmas, including Christmas Cantatas.
Praise Group offers contemporary music that the congregation is invited to sing along with during worship.
Children’s Choir presents their praises to God at special services during the year and the children do a special musical performance at Christmas.
Special music is offered throughout the year. Anyone with the desire to sing or play an instrument in praise to God our Father is welcome to contact our Choir Director to arrange for a time to do so.
Feed My Sheep:
Our Feed My Sheep Food Pantry was initiated in March 2015 to meet the hunger needs of the residents of the Sayre PA and Athens PA school districts. Our Food Pantry is open the second Wednesday of each month and the fifth Wednesday for months with five Wednesdays. We distribute our food from the front of our large parking lot. This requires 15 to 20 volunteers each month to coordinate the Food Pantry.
We purchase food from the Central Penn Food Bank in Harrisburg and Williamsport as well as our local ALDI’s food market. We accept donations of food from our congregation, individuals in our community, and community organizations.
We currently provide food for much more than two or three days. Our basic foods we distribute are cereal, peanut butter, mac and cheese, spaghetti sauce and pasta, canned vegetables, canned soups, and canned fruits. Currently we purchase milk, bread, eggs, sliced cheese, ground meat, fresh fruits and vegetables, and potatoes (when available). Plus, we provide extra items depending on the size of the family and our food supplies.
Monetary donations are welcomed from local organizations or individuals and our generous congregation. If you wish to donate cash, just make the check payable to the Athens United Methodist Church and note on the Memo line: for the Food Pantry.
THANKS for your continued support of our Food Pantry!
Fellowship Meals:
As a member of The Bridge of the Penn-York Valley Churches, Athens United Methodist Church offers a free fellowship meal to the community on the second Thursday of each month. Many different community organizations host the meal, including our own United Methodist Women, Sayre-Athens Rotary, Valley Kiwanis, and Girl Scouts, to name a few.
Outreach:
Each month there is a different organization that is chosen to receive donations through our congregation. For 2024 the AUMC monthly missions will include the following:
January - Shriner's Hospital for Children; February - Mission Center: March - Samaritan's Purse Disaster Relief; April - Free Fellowship Meal; May - Abuse and Rape Crisis Center of Bradford County; June - Susquehanna Conference's Volunteers in Mission; July - Feed my Sheep; August - Chow for Children PA; September - One Great Hour of Sharing through UMCOR; October - Endless Mountains Mission Center; November - Casa Trinity Drug Recovery; December - Southern Tier Eye Institute in Africa
My Brother's Keeper (Ugly Quilt's)
As the cold weather descends, we are busy making sleeping bags for the homeless and blankets for shelters as we have for 31 years.
Our 2 special projects, making quilts for children, are coming to an end. The Children’s House Advocacy Center in Towanda, PA picked up the 50 blankets in specific sizes they requested. The Red Door, Waverly, NY has a blanket give away at their kid’s Christmas party so we will continue to donate as we make all sizes up until Dec.1st deadline. If they should have too many, the excess will go to the kid’s party in Owego.
We continue to leave bags and blankets at the Salvation Army food pantry, and we just gave out a blanket to a woman that needed one for her 5-year-old son.
We have been blessed with 3 large donations from the local Hampton Inn of sheets, pillows, mattress pads, duvet covers, towels and thick puffy comforters.
The community has been generous with knitted and crocheted afghans and commercially made fleece, cotton, and wool blankets. Some are passed along as is, but often they end up as warm batting. We love the beautiful fabric that quilters donate. Because we make just patchwork, they are often referred to as “ugly quilts”, but to us they are all beautiful and it’s fun to work with the variety of fabric that shows up.
We regularly serve shelters/nonprofits in NY and PA. Our next donation will be helping the YWCA in Binghamton, NY. They have advocates that actively go out into the community looking for the homeless. If staff can’t convince them to come inside for services, at least one of our sleeping bags, (with warm clothing and toiletries ), makes life on the street more comfortable.
Several knitters and crocheters make scarves, hats, and mittens that we include in each bag. Some use their own yarn, but we are fortunate to have a supply of 4 ply yarn regularly donated. If anyone would like to join this dedicated “group”, that works at home at their own pace, we can provide the yarn.
For Thanksgiving we were able to make a cash donation to the church; grateful for space, heat, storage, kitchen privileges...etc. Many thanks to the church family for embracing this needed ministry.
To date we have made 5,825 sleeping bags and 1,795 blankets (plus many kid’s quilts).
If anyone would like to join us, we work every Tuesday morning 9:30-12:00 in AUMC’s Bethel Hall. A variety of jobs are available, and you don’t have to be able to sew. Come for the coffee, cookies, and laughter. Stay for the feeling of accomplishment and helping others.
So this is how we ended 2023. And in spite of starting January with a cancelation due to snow, we are anticipating a busy, productive 2024.
My Brother's Keeper
Gloria ,570-888-0885 if questions.