News You Can Use

For Your Church Newsletter    - by Steve Tindall

From Lutheran Community Services            April 2015

Editors: This information is prepared for church newsletter editors, secretaries and pastors. Your help in getting the word out is appreciated and will help LCS achieve its mission of “Sharing God’s blessings by helping others in need.” Comments about timing or content are welcome. Contact Steve Tindall (stindall@lcsde.org). 302 654 8886.

Building Almost Complete

Progress has been steady on the renovation of the new LCS headquarters building on Baynard Boulevard in Wilmington.  According to contractors, it should be completed April 1

Homelessness Prevented

Linda had been homeless for quite some time.  She stayed at relatives’ houses, on friends’ couches, in motels, in short- and long-term shelters.  Not having a mailing address and a working phone made it difficult for people to reach her, so she often used the phone at Lutheran Community Services to talk to 211 – the information helpline – for screening and the next temporary housing placement.  Linda is 63. Her husband, a veteran, passed away. Linda receives his VA pension so is able to pay a subsidized rent in an ongoing manner …if she were able to work out the logistics involved in finding a place to move in to and communicating with them.  With LCS’s help, Linda was able to meet these challenges. LCS was able to provide her with the security deposit she needed for Sacred Heart Village, a low income apartment community, where she lives today in her own place.

Capital Campaign Donors May Be Eligible for Tax Credit

Larger donations to the LCS Capital Campaign may be eligible for Delaware’s Neighborhood Assistance Act Program. Under the program, individual and business donors with an income tax liability in Delaware (and who reside in Delaware) can get a 50% tax credit for campaign donations made during calendar year 2015. Application should be made as soon as possible on or after July 1, 2015. This is not a deduction but a direct credit taken off the bottom line of your tax bill to Delaware. The NAA tax credit equals 50% of the qualified contribution up to a maximum eligible contribution of $100,000 annually per taxpayer, resulting in a maximum annual tax credit of $50,000 per taxpayer. The minimum contribution by an individual or family is $2,500 for a tax credit of $1,250. The minimum contribution by a business is $10,000 for a tax credit of $5,000. Contact Steve Tindall (302 654 8886 x105 or stindall@lcsde.org) for assistance.

Your Help is Needed Now! PANTRY OPENINGS AT ST. STEPHEN'S

HELP IS NEEDED NOW!


Lutheran Community Services (LCS) is currently seeking volunteers to work in our St. Stephen’s Food Pantry on N. Broom Street, near Trolley Square in Wilmington. Hours are 9am to 12pm and the pantry is open Monday – Friday. Duties include stocking, bagging, filling referral requests from clients, and helping with shipments. Schedules are flexible and you can work as many days as you like. St. Stephen’s Pantry serves approximately 25,000 individuals a year, our largest and busiest pantry. If you would like to help and know you are making a difference please contact the LCS Volunteer Coordinator, Cher Frampton at 302-654-8886 x 107 or cframpton@yahoo.com to set up an interview.

News You Can Use

For Your Church Newsletter    - Prepared by Steve Tindall

From Lutheran Community Services                            July 2014

Editors: This information is prepared for church newsletter editors, secretaries and pastors. Your help in getting the word out is appreciated and will help LCS achieve its mission of “Sharing God’s blessings by helping others in need.” Comments about timing or content are welcome. Contact Steve Tindall (stindall@lcsde.org). 302 654 8886.

A Journey Back From Homelessness

Irene first came to LCS in July of 2009.  At that time, she was homeless, confused, and unkempt. Her speech was difficult to understand and often did not make sense. She had been homeless for awhile, living in shelters here and there, and she was clutching a folded piece of paper from WHA indicating that she was eligible, but that the wait would be a year and a half.  In the years that followed, she came back many times for food, clothing, and blankets.  Referrals were written for her at both the St. Stephen’s pantry and at the Zion pantry.  She often used the phones at the Women’s Friendship House Drop in Center to contact us and the coordinators there seemed to genuinely care for her.  She seemed worried about her safety and we encouraged her to look into Luther Towers. Then, recently, Irene returned to LCS and asked for furniture – for her new home in Luther Towers! Now, Irene has a table and chairs, sofa, and nightstand from us and the New Life Furnishings Program of Westminster.  It is uplifting to see the new glow in Irene’s eyes and the quiet comfort of her new home.  At 67, she finally seems to be genuinely happy and at peace.  Helping the homeless, those who are already “on the street,” like Irene, is challenging, which is why LCS housing assistance generally focuses on those who are trying to prevent homelessness, before they lose everything.

Sign Up for the Hunger Walk Run Online

On June 16, visitors to www.lcsde.org noticed that you can now sign up online for the annual LCS Hunger Walk Run (September 20). In addition to convenience, this tool allows you to track your fundraising for the Walk Run and use social media to help you. For example, Janice Reissig of Hope said, “Using the online tool for Walk-Run donations was easy, and broadened my access to potential donors.  I was surprised when I posted a link in Facebook individuals I hadn't thought to personally solicit donated -- and several of my sponsors were out of state, too.   It helped me to reach a personal best for the LCS Hunger Walk Run -- an amount that was over 60% higher than I'd ever raised!”  The online donations tool can make your fundraising easy and give you an edge in the competition to see who can raise the most to help support LCS’s pantries for low income people who come to us for help with food and nutrition.

2013 Annual Report to Congregations

In 2013 LCS decided to focus on the theme “Together We Can,” emphasizing the importance of our donors and volunteers.  Without the hard work and dedication of our supporters, our small staff would never have been able to assist an estimated 100,000 people with food and housing for the second year in a row!

This year we added a seventeenth food program! The new monthly food distribution, (formerly known as a Grocery Club) titled Haven of Caring, takes place at Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church. This partnership with Bethel AME largely serves the residents of the Beautiful Gate Outreach Center located behind the church. Together LCS and Bethel AME are now able to help provide more for basic needs of our community.

In a few short months this year, LCS added three new Home Repair Specialists to our Home Repair program. With six trained handymen now available to assist senior citizens and the disabled with small home repair, we’re on track to complete 95 repairs this year – a 67% increase over last year!

The 22^nd Annual Hunger Walk Run also saw new community engagement when we added online registration software which allowed participants to create their own fundraising pages and use social networking and email to ask their friends and families for support.  With collecting sponsorships easier than ever, we saw a rise in both the number of people who collected sponsorships (137 in 2012 and 151 in 2013) and the average amount brought in per participant ($105.48 in 2012 and $126.24 in 2013). Records were set in youth, adult, and church fundraising.

Looking forward to 2014, LCS will be moving into a new headquarters. St. Stephen’s is selling our current building, necessitating the move, but the growth we’ve experiences in both need and support make this the perfect time for change. We’re excited about the prospect of merging our staff under one roof!

-Prepared by Steve Tindall

Missing a Friend...

This year when we began gathering the walk/run committee to start planning for this years event, a face was missing. A very important face...Joseph Lange. His wife Linda was and she had the sad task of informing us that Joe was not feeling so good and probably would not be working on the walk/run this year. We all said our prayers for Joe and hoped for the best. 

He was hard shoes to fill with everything he did for that event. He would show up around 6am in the morning with a large truck filled with tables and chair, signage, hammers and I am pretty sure duct tape. (It fixes everything you know!) He made sure everything was set up, signs were hung up, including on the tower in Rockford park, so that the next wave of volunteers coming in could set up their stations. Without him, we couldn't get started. Years before he did a lot of hands on work with the money and registration. Linda, his wife, would pick up much of the food and bring it in and help set that up. The Langes have just been such an important part of that event.  Until the unthinkable.

On November 3rd we lost Joseph to his illness. It was a bit of a shock, and it will take some time for our group to recover from such a loss. I often wonder how people can think that volunteers are not that valuable, or so easily replaceable. They obviously have never worked at LCS. Or worked with volunteers at all or anywhere who has them for that matter. It is at such times as these that we sit and reflect on how blessed we are and have been as an organization to have such wonderful volunteers such as Joseph and Linda Lange. So thank you, thank you so much for all both of you gave to us for so many years!

Below is Joseph's obituary and I followed it up with Greater Power, November's monthly prayer we will be handing out.


Joseph B. Lange

AGE: 68 • Wilmington

Joseph B. Lange, age 68, of Wilmington, DE, passed away on November 3, 2013 at home surrounded by his family.

Joe was born and raised in Wilmington, to the late Joseph and Winona Lange. He was a graduate of Mt. Pleasant High School. Joe served two tours of duty in Vietnam with the Seabees and was a certified diver with MCB-7. He owned and operated Lange Construction, Inc. for 31 years. Joe was a Scout Leader for Troop 62. He was a Master Mason and belonged to Brandywine Lodge, #33 A.F. & A.M., where he served as president of the Hall Company. Joe was an active member of St. Mark's Lutheran Church. He volunteered at Sojourner's Place and Lutheran Community Service in Wilmington. Joe enjoyed spending time with his family and friends. He also loved to travel, enjoyed hunting, woodworking and doing projects with his sons.

Joe is survived by his wife of 45 years, Linda L. Lange, his children, Michael Lange (Pamela) Stephen Lange (Jennifer) Sharon Gaskill (Jason), his sister Jeannette August (Ronald), his grandchildren, Ashley MacLeish, Skyler Elizabeth Lange and Jaxon Gaskill.


Greater Power 

Every month we have a pastor/reverend from a different church write us a new and inspirational prayer to offer the recipients of our food services.  We place a copy of this prayer into each of the grocery bags we hand out. We feel that most who come to us are having a pretty rough time and could use some comforting words to help them through...every little bit helps. 

Here is November's...

Merciful Jesus,

For your death on the cross which forgives my sins, for your resurrection into a glorified body which promises I too will be made perfect on the Day of the Lord, and for your promise that you will make all things new on that day, I THANK YOU! In the meantime, keep me faithful amidst the trials and struggles of life, and help me to be thankful for the love of other people. 
Amen.

Pastor David Kummer
Concordia Evangelical Lutheran Church
11/13

Joseph B. Lange

AGE: 68 • Wilmington

Age 68, of Wilmington, DE, passed away on November 3, 2013 at home surrounded by his family.

Joe was born and raised in Wilmington, to the late Joseph and Winona Lange. He was a graduate of Mt. Pleasant High School. Joe served two tours of duty in Vietnam with the Seabees and was a certified diver with MCB-7. He owned and operated Lange Construction, Inc. for 31 years. Joe was a Scout Leader for Troop 62. He was a Master Mason and belonged to Brandywine Lodge, #33 A.F. & A.M., where he served as president of the Hall Company. Joe was an active member of St. Mark's Lutheran Church. He volunteered at Sojourner's Place and Lutheran Community Service in Wilmington. Joe enjoyed spending time with his family and friends. He also loved to travel, enjoyed hunting, woodworking and doing projects with his sons.
Joe is survived by his wife of 45 years, Linda L. Lange, his children, Michael Lange (Pamela) Stephen Lange (Jennifer) Sharon Gaskill (Jason), his sister Jeannette August (Ronald), his grandchildren, Ashley MacLeish, Skyler Elizabeth Lange and Jaxon Gaskill.

2013 Walk Run Pictorial Video

A lovely pictorial video from our 2013 Walk/Run held on September 21 at Rockford Park in Wilmington. Special thanks to staff member Heather Teig for putting this beautiful video together.

To see the rest of LCS's video's visit us on Youtube by clicking on the YouTube logo by scrolling down on the right hand side of the screen.

Call to Action - Food Drives Needed Now!

Attention devoted volunteers and contributors of LCS...

We are experiencing a temporary but critical supply problem at St. Stephen’s pantry and we would like your help. Put another way, we are almost out of food, and we won’t get any deliveries till next week. We are very concerned that if we don’t get more food soon, we may have to turn people away.  Would you be willing to help by putting out the word that we need folks to donate food or conduct food drives? Hopefully, we’ll then have something on our shelves when hungry people come to us.

We understand that there is a good supply of canned fruit and beans, but need these things right away:

·       Canned meat (tuna, stew, pasta with meat, etc.)

Our USDA Room as of October 16, 2013.

·       Peanut butter

·       Soup

·       Crackers

·       Dry pasta

·       Baby food

·       Vegetables (especially green)

Help from your church would be much appreciated. Remember also that government cuts of food stamps are set to take place November 1, 2013, and that as a result, we expect demand to accelerate. Donated food is more and more important to us. It helps fill the gaps presented by deliveries from our main sources, the Food Bank of Delaware and the USDA.

Thank you. If you have questions, feel free to call or email me.  To arrange to drop off food, contact Aaron Ballet on extension 104. Also, we have a helpful guidebook about how to conduct a food drive that is available by contacting Cher Frampton, LCS Volunteer Coordinator, 302-654-8886, on extension 107. Or follow this LINK to get a copy of the food drive kit on line.

 

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News You Can Use -Special Edition Walk/Run 2013

From Lutheran Community Services                  November 2013

Editors: This information is prepared for church newsletter editors, secretaries and pastors. Your help in getting the word out is appreciated and will help LCS achieve its mission of “Sharing God’s blessings by helping others in need.” Comments about timing or content are welcome. Contact & Prepared by Steve Tindall (stindall@lcsde.org). 302 654 8886.

Walk Run Results

We had a fantastic annual Hunger Walk Run on September 21 in Rockford Park. Altogether, this year’s Hunger Walk Run raised $46,172 – a little short of our $50,000 goal, but definitely an outstanding showing that ranks right up there with our best years. This excellent result is due to a great deal of enthusiasm from the participants, the staff at LCS and the Walk Run Committee. If you are interested in working on next year’s Hunger Walk Run, contact Steve Tindall at 654 8886 x105 or stindall@lcsde.org.

Here are the winners.  The church that raised the most was Grace Lutheran ($11,565 – a new record for a church), followed by St. Marks ($10,212 – more than double its previous best), and Faith ($2,620).  The church with the most participants was St. Marks (64), followed by Grace (31), and St. Philips (29).  The church with the highest percentage of its congregation participating was St. Marks (13.02%), followed by Zion (9.62%) and St. Philips (9.21%).

Individual fundraisers broke records! The Adult winner was Jan Hufnal from Grace who raised $4,500, a record for an adult. Then Daniel Luettgen, a youth from Grace, raised $2,263, a record for a youth! This year’s success is attributed to several things. First, the enthusiasm of the fundraisers – the people who went out and got sponsorships for their participation. Second, we believe that much of the success stems from the ease of online registration and fundraising. Lots of people used it this year and from all reports they enjoyed its simplicity and accuracy.

Thrivent was once again the lead sponsor, committing $6400 to the total raised, which was a wonderful donation. They also offered to match each item brought to the LCS Food Drive at the Walk Run, which totaled an additional $350. Thank you Thrivent Financial.

All of the funds raised by the Hunger Walk Run will go toward LCS’s Emergency Food Programs. We assemble our food budget from many different sources. What we raise from the Walk Run is the single largest source of funds for the food programs. Without it, we would have a great deal of trouble meeting the strong demand for emergency food help from people in need in our community.
 _____________________________________________________________________________

 From the Desk of Cher Frampton - Volunteer Coordinator LCS

We can never emphasize enough the importance of our volunteers and how much they mean to our organization. In fact, we would not have an organization without them. They are our most valuable asset, and without them we could not operate any of our many operations at all of the various locations that graciously host us.

We also need our contributors and sponsors, for we also need substance (money & goods) to purchase the food that we give out to our clients every day. Without them, we also would not exist. Which is what makes an event like the LCS Walk/Run so special.

It's one of the few times where we have volunteers, contributors, clients, sponsors, staff, churches...everyone, joining together and making one event run smoothly, ensuring everyone is having a good time and that everything is taken care of. It shows what kind of a community we are and what kind of moral character we are all made of. How proud we all should be!

We would like to thank the following who participated that day in helping to set up and run the event and clean up. IF I MISSED A NAME, please let me know! These kind of events have a way of getting helpers in through all kinds of means official and otherwise. So, please, let me know so I can add you to the list! :)

 

 Our

Volunteers: 

Olive Barton

Jeff  Batt
Brenda Bayard
Mark Cilento
Courtney Colier-Beyer
Joe Duker
Larry Friday
Mike Goyda

                                                    Nancy Goyda

                      

Mark Gunderson
Donna Harris
George Hood
Mark Hopkins
Karrah Johnston
Josh Kelly
Leonard Kojro
Chuck Landry
Linda Lange
Bill Lindsey
Richard Porto

 

 

 

Jon Roth

Kyle Schuldt

Tamara Siburg

Roy Sullivan

Harry Walker

Conrad Warren 

Sam Weedor

Gene Yanek

Gene Zaiser
Nancy Zinnato

 

We would also like to thank our Major Sponsors:

Thrivent Financial for Lutherans       WSFS Bank       NEIL       Shone Lumber      PNC Bank

Also our other supporters and contributors:

Brew Ha Ha    Cafee Gelato    Cann Printing    Catherine Rooney's    Delaware Children's Museum
Giant Foods    Grand Opera House    Greek Delight Restaurant    InstaSigns Plus  Lange Construction
Mercantile Press    Merrily Schiavone    Pump & Corrosion     Sir Speedy Union Street    Threatre N
Two Stones Pub    Vital Signs & Graphics    Walgreens Naaman's Road     Winterthur

Without help from across the community from everyone we could not do all that we do, and reach the many families in Delaware that struggle with hunger every day. Our theme this year is "Together We Can" and our Walk/Run is a shinning example of how we do just that.

Photographs by Bill Lindsey and Jeff Batt

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