The Christ Church Community Outreach (CCCO) Program is not a standing committee of the church. Membership on this committee is totally voluntary and is not limited to anyone. In fact, several members of this committee are not even Christ Church parishioners.
The CCCO Program has four main functions:
- Collect and distribute food from Christ Church parishioners to anyone who needs it.
- Help fund the various and sundry lunchrooms, soup kitchens and food distribution points in Staten Island as best we can.
- Provide nourishing meals in conjunction with Project Hospitality and Trinity Lutheran Church as part of the Second Saturday feeding program.
- Provide food baskets for needy families and indivudals during holiday seasons.
Every member of Christ Church is a contributing part of the CCCO Program whether it be by actually cooking a meal, delivering a meal, or serving a meal to a hungry person. The semi-official board members are as follows:
| The CCCO Program Board: |
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| Fr. Chuck |
Willie Black, Jr. |
David Holt |
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| Ali Mitchell |
Beverly Neuhaus |
Victor Stanwick |
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| Geri Swanson |
John Watson |
Everybody Else |
Our goal is to have every Christ Church parishioner do something, no matter how small or seemingly trivial, to keep this program moving forward.
The meeting dates of the CCCO Program are set during each meeting. Meeting notices appear in the Sunday bulletins and on the Christ Church bulleting board. |
| Oh, if only Ali Mitchell would send me some information about the Fundraising committee. That would be swell. |
The Worship & Liturgy committee is not a standing committee of Christ Church. Membership is entirely voluntary. The Worship & Liturgy committee determines the style of worship at Christ Church. Will we sing the Lord's Prayer? Will announcements come at the end of the service, or after we pass the Lord's peace? What time will services be held? These are the sort of questions answered by the Worship and Liturgy committee.
The members of the Worship & Liturgy committee are as follows:
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| Fr. Chuck |
Willie Black, Jr. |
Beth Johanning-Hayes |
Beth McLean |
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| Trevor Mills |
Nancy Reiersen-Scromo |
Joan Rock |
Tom Sarff |
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| Paul Smith |
Victor Stanwick |
David Wood |
Dan Wood |
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The Plant & Equipment committee is a standing committee of the church. Its chairperson is appointed by the Rector, though the rest of the committee is voluntary. P&E has the responsibility of keeping the buildings and grounds of Christ Church in good, workable, and usable order. Susan L. Fowler has been the chair of this committee since 2001.
Susan has supervised the installation of a chair lift in the cloister to make the church more accessible, the replacement of the entire south side of the nave roof, the installation of a lightning protection system, new electrical services for the parish house, the church and the rectory, the renovation of the exterior of the rectory, and the purchase of a new lawn maintenance and snow removal tractor for the church. She is currently (December 2007) facing the rebuilding of the interior support and exterior surface of the roof on the tower. Susan is also creating a maintenance plan designed to undo many years of deferred and neglected maintenance.
For an overview of the work done at Christ Church, as well as the help given to us by the Episcopal Diocese of New York's Property Support Committee, see this article from the September/October Episcopal New Yorker (in PDF format).
Peter Raff, a member of the P&E committee, is a private contractor who has graciously donated much of his time to the "Hands to Work, Hearts to God" program, a sub-committee of P&E. Modeled on programs that originated in the Shaker community, this sub-committee meets on the fourth Saturday of each month to tackle small jobs around the church such as raking leaves, cleaning out storerooms, painting basement classrooms, and other chores that in the long run save the church a small fortune in contractor's fees.
Sheila Swigert is in charge of the stained-glass restoration projects and has overseen repairs to the Nativity window, Christ Stilling the Storm, Christ Among the Doctors, and four windows in the stairway down to the choir room. There is still an estimated $100,000 worth of repairs to be done. |
Serendipity was founded by Judy Lefebvre, the wife of a fonner rector, around 1966-67. Originally Judy announced that the organization was a social group for single persons and married couples, but within a comparatively short time, the group began to raise money for a great variety of projects for the church.
Of the hundreds of thousands of dollars Serendipity has raised, the only monies not given to Christ Church are annual grants made to Staten Island Food Pantries for the needy, a one-time grant was made to a parish whose church was burned down, and a special lunch that was held for the victims of the awful Tsunami in 2006, The musical group Serenade has also benefited for several years, as has Episcopal Relief Services. For a long time it has been our custom to spend $250 for toys for the children of the Seamens Institute.
Serendipity organizes soup and sandwich lunches, pizza, salad and wine parties, pasta dinners, chicken pot pie dinners, quiche lunches, Italian, German and British meals, Texas-style barbeques with line dancing, pancake suppers, fish fries, bagel brunches, St. Patrick's Day lunches, full English breakfasts prior to trips, free August ice cream socials, Octoberfests, prefair dinners (including the Salad Bowl of 2007) and soup & sandwich lunches. Serendipity always takes a very active role in the Spring and Christmas Fair activites, and for fun and fellowship has organized bus trips to the Cloisters, St. John's Cathedral, the Vanderbilt and Rockefeller Mansions in New York, the Culinary Institute, Flemington, Hope, Edison Museum, Lambertville, Peddlar's Village and Hunterdon Hills, theatre visits to a repertory company in New Jersey, and each year for the last eight has organized its largest profitmaking event, the May Ham Dinner which is usually attended by almost one hundred people.
Serendipity has paid for a band to accompany some of our dining events, sold tee shirts, bought new commercial refrigerators for the parish kitchen, and allocated $1,200 for new flooring in the nursery. We.made grants for the prison ministry of a former priest, and we always give our rectors discretionary funds to distribute to the needy at Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter or at any other time. For several years members of Serendipity have run the holiday fairs for the church's benefit, organized a parish cookbook, and annual parish directories. In 2004 Serendipity created and sold a popular three-year calendar including a new history of Christ Church and a humor section. It has held Talent No-Talent nights, and film shows like Sister Act with Whoopi Goldberg. Serendipity sponsors the sales of pickled onions, mint sauce, mango and other chutneys and marmalades and jams throughout the year. It sells greetings cards for every holiday, and has made grants to church publications. In 2006-2007 it raised money through the sale of candles. Large sums have been given to the Vestry for the improvement of lighting and power outlets in the Guild Room and it has also provided fans for that area. Serendipity has purchased many card and long tables for the use of the parish and each year rarely gives less than $1,000 and sometimes more ($1,500 in 2007) to help the Vestry balance its budget.
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Serendipity's expenses for paper and other supplies are borne by members as a gift to the church. Any copying not done on members' home copiers is done at their expense at Staples rather than in the church office. The church does bear the cost of bulk mailings of under $40 a year.
Informal monthly meetings are open to everyone in the parish. Meetings are held from September to June, usually in a member's home and happily close with refreshments. Transportation is always available. On the day after each meeting a brief summary appears in the Staten Island Advance. Minutes of meetings are circulated to both Wardens, the Parish Treasurer, our Rector, and those who chair the Fund Raising, and Buildings and Grounds committees. Minutes from January 2003 to the present day are available in the parish office.
| Serendipity |
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Marlene Elia
President |
Martha Keucher
Treasurer |
Colin Reed
Secretary |
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| Carol Brown |
Laura Craig |
Judy Davis |
Ed Craig |
Paul Smith |
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