Outreach Opportunities

The Bethesda Center provides a temporary shelter for over 100 homeless men and women in the Winston Salem area. Every Wednesday night, a group of volunteers from Mount Tabor travel to the center and serve the Bethesda guests by providing hot meals accompanied with music, devotion, and prayer. To sign up to help on a Wednesday night to help serve food or lead music or devotion, click here.

​

If you are unable to help serve at the center, but would like to support the Bethesda Ministry, there are numerous ways in which you can help out. The ministry is in constant need of bottled water as well as cookie and decaffeinated coffee donations. Monetary gifts are also appreciated and welcomed by the Bethesda Ministry, as this ensures our ability to continue providing dinner for the guests at the center. 

For more than 20 continuous years, MTUMC members have gathered pledges and participated in the Forsyth County CROP Hunger Walk.  The funds collected are used to fight hunger locally, through Crisis Control Ministry and Sunnyside Ministry, and globally through Church World Service.  The Forsyth County Walk, held on the third Sunday in October, regularly places in the top 10 of CROP Walks in the US in terms of walkers or money raised, and MTUMC regularly receives awards for the number of participants and amount of money raised.
 

Typically, Mount Tabor walkers will lunch together at the church before the event and will ride the bus to the Walk site.  The length of the walk is less than 2 miles.

Crisis Control Ministry, Inc. is a Christian-based ministry whose mission is to assist people in crisis to meet essential life needs and to become self-sufficient.  This ministry’s vision is to give help for today and hope for tomorrow by providing our neighbors with support, advocacy, understanding, and information.  MTUMC members donate food each month for the food pantry at Crisis Control and serve as volunteers and Board members.  MTUMC collects food for Crisis Control Ministry on an ongoing basis.  The collection bin is in the Welcome Center

Volunteer opportunities are always available for interviewing clients, administrative work, food pantry and pharmacy workers.  Help is also needed with special projects throughout the year, such as Hope du Jour, CROP Hunger Walk, WeeCare events, Food Day at the Fair.

​

​www.crisiscontrol.org

Members of B.O.B. (Band of Brothers) and other men from MTUMC are in service to the men of the Forsyth Correctional Center on Craft Drive in Winston-Salem.  This is a minimum-security center, and many of these inmates are preparing for life outside the prison.  

There are many volunteer opportunities here, including helping with Donuts and Devotions four times a year (Sunday morning, 7:45-9:00), Sunday night worship, Bible studies, and tutoring/mentoring during the week.  Donations of reading materials and personal hygiene items are accepted.  Under current regulations, anyone passing the background check can volunteer at the prison once per year.  To participate more than once a year, one must become a Community Volunteer. 

through the Church-School Connection.  Our church provides school supplies, student uniforms and other clothing, personal hygiene items, staff support, student tutoring, and support for the North Hills BackPack Program.  

Our school supply collection (Stuff the Bus) is held in August, and in the spring, a Great Day of Service project is typically done at North Hills.  In addition, congregants have knitted hats and scarves for students, sponsored families at Christmas and held “appreciation” events for staff.  There are many ways to become involved in this ministry on either a one time or ongoing basis.

Food for Thought is the MTUMC emergency food assistance pantry located at the WS/FC Schools Social Work office.  Our pantry allows expedient service to families identified by school social workers as needing emergency food assistance.  

Non- perishable food items maybe donated in a designated bin located in the lobby of the Family Life Center.  Monetary donations help offset the handling fee when food must be purchased from Second Harvest Food Bank.  Food is also collected for Food for Thought during the annual Stuff the Bus event in August.  The need for this kind of assistance is especially great in this area.  

During the 2012-13 school year 52% of local students qualified for free or reduced lunch, and one in four Forsyth County children live below the poverty line.

Every year MTUMC provides Christmas gifts for more than 250 needy children in our community, the names and gift wishes of which are provided by partner agencies, such as Bethlehem Community Center, Little Red Schoolhouse, Potter’s House, Waughtown Kids ‘R’ Us and the United Methodist District Hispanic Ministry.  Beginning in mid-November, congregants choose their respective “angels” and then bring their wrapped gifts to the church by mid-December.  The gifts are then delivered to the families, so that there will be Christmas presents for their children.  Invariably, the families express amazement and gratitude at the generosity of MTUMC.

Volunteers are needed to staff the distribution of angels and the collection and distribution of gifts, and for other activities.

Samaritan Ministries provides a homeless shelter for men (70 beds) and a soup kitchen (the only one in our community) that typically serves 300-400 people each day.  It also houses the life changing Cornerstone Program, a residential substance abuse recovery program.  Several of the more than 150 Cornerstone graduates have joined the staff at Samaritan Ministries and many others have gained full-time employment in our community.

Volunteers are needed to serve lunch in the soup kitchen (weekdays from ~9 AM to 1 PM) and to staff the overnight shelter (6 PM to 7 AM each day).  MTUMC regularly provides volunteers for both of these ministries, and several MTUMC members currently serve on the Board of Directors for Samaritan Ministries.  Samaritan Ministries will be moving to a new (and larger) building (currently under construction and to be occupied early in 2015), at which time many more volunteers will be needed.

At least once a quarter, volunteers visit those members of Mount Tabor UMC who are unable to attend church services.

UMAR provides a continuum of services to support people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (of varying levels), based on needs and preferences.  They offer residential services, community-based services and vocational services.  They operate two homes in the Winston-Salem and several more in the Greensboro area.  

They need volunteers to serve as friends and teachers (for instance, for craft activities) for participants and to organize group activities (e.g., parties or bowling trips).

The Shepherd’s Center of Greater Winston-Salem is an interfaith ministry that promotes and supports successful aging, by providing direct services, volunteer opportunities and enrichment programs for older adults. 

The Faith in Action Care Program consists of visitation, respite care, minor home repair and transportation services for homebound older adults.  The Congregational Nurse and Health Ministry Program is a community partnership to promote, develop and support health ministries in and through faith communities.  The Senior Center Program offers exercise classes, bridge, crafts, educational programs and fellowship groups.

​

visit www.shepherdscenter.org or contact Linda Lewis at (336) 748-0217 or llewis@shepherdscenter.org. to learn more about The Shepherd's Center

The Second Harvest Food Bank of Northwest NC is the largest area food bank.  Each year, it supplies more than 22 million pounds of nutritious food and grocery products (the equivalent of more than 18 million meals) to children, families, seniors and others in need in 18 counties of northwest North Carolina.  In this service area, it is estimated that 1 in 6 people, and greater than 1 in 4 children, lack access to sufficient food to meet their nutritional needs.  In recent years, the number of persons requiring assistance has grown dramatically and now includes many individuals who never imagined they’d have to seek help to feed their families.

The Second Harvest Food Bank partners with more than 400 community-based food assistance programs (food pantries, shelters and kitchens and special meal programs for children and seniors) to deliver services.

There are many ways to help.  These include organizing food drives and fundraising activities (at churches, in neighborhoods, etc.).  They also include a variety of activities at the Food Bank, including sorting and repackaging donated food, inspecting (candling) donated eggs, “building pallets” (assembling the appropriate foodstuffs onto pallets for delivery), and working in any of various community gardens which donate produce to the Food Bank.

​

www.hungernwnc.org

Meals on Wheels provides hot lunches or other food options on weekdays to approximately 1200 homebound members of the Winston-Salem community.  MTUMC members and friends staff a Meals on Wheels route.  This involves picking up the meals at Senior Services and delivering them to the prescribed recipients, typically during later morning hours (10 AM – noon).

​

www.seniorservicesinc.org

The Outreach Response Team (ORT) seeks to address short-term, emergency needs of individuals in our community, through assistance with rent and other billing emergencies, food shortages, and other crises that arise at the last minute.  We work in conjunction with Crisis Control Ministry and other relief agencies to provide assistance for these basic needs of the community.

The mission of The Shalom Project is “to build a strong and healthy community by meeting the needs of people with compassion, celebrating diversity and working for justice.” 

Located in the West Salem neighborhood, the Shalom Project operates a weekly (Tuesday mornings) food pantry and clothes closet, a Wednesday evening Welcome Table community supper, a free weekly (Wednesdays) medical clinic and pharmacy, and free after-school enrichment and tutoring for at-risk children and youth.  

The Shalom Project was instrumental in starting and is an ongoing partner with the Peters Creek Community Initiative, a community effort focused on improving services along Peters Creek Parkway, between First Street and Link Road, for lower income individuals in Ardmore and West Salem.  

The newest Shalom Project ministry is a comprehensive advocacy program for the poor, called Circles.  It involves pairing poor families with teams of allies to guide and advocate for them.

MTUMC volunteers have helped deliver services in Shalom Project programs and also performed work to maintain and upgrade the facility (cleaning, painting, laying flooring, construction projects, yard work, etc.) for the continuation of these important programs.

​

theshalomprojectnc.org

Habitat for Humanity provides affordable, soundly constructed, housing for low-income families, either through new construction or through refurbishing existing homes.  Each prospective homeowner is carefully screened, obtains a no interest mortgage, and contributes sweat equity toward the construction of his/her home.  

MTUMC members volunteer with Habitat for Humanity in a variety of ways, including providing construction labor, sorting donated items or providing other assistance at the Habitat ReStore, providing food for construction volunteers, and fundraising.  The time commitment varies with the kind of volunteering.

​

www.habitatforsyth.org