The faith communities of the New Hope Road Alliance will rehabilitate the restrooms at Wilders Grove Youth Center in June and July, and you can help.
We will need financial contributions; your donation will be matched dollar-for-dollar by the alliance. Please contribute before June 20, as we need to pay for supplies. Make out a check to New Hope Road Alliance and give it to Jessie Maeck, or you can send it to the Alliance in care of its treasurer, Don Betts, CPA; 2624 Leighton Ridge Drive, Suite 100; Wake Forest, NC 27587.
Skilled assistance is needed with plumbing, carpentry and tile for the first phase of the rehabilitation. Less-skilled labor is also needed; if you can swing a paint brush, we need you for the second phase.
Contact Jessie if you can help; jsmaeck@aol.com or 617-549-7285
Saturday, May 20: help clean up Wilder’s Grove Youth Center, both indoors and outdoors. Two “shifts” – 9:30 to 12:00 noon and 11:30 to 2:00, with pizza at lunchtime. We’ll be cleaning out buildings, power-washing them, and pruning shrubs and bushes. Contact Jessie Maeck if you can help.
Wilder’s Grove Fellowship Cookout April 1, 2017.
June: repairs to Wilder’s Grove Youth Center bathrooms; need help with putting in new stalls and tile floors, and with painting. Exact dates to be determined. Carpentry and tile expertise needed! Contact Jessie Maeck if you can help.
2017-18 School Year: Tutors needed for “Read and Feed” program at Wilburn Elementary. Beginning in late August or early September, the program is held once a week, either Tuesday or Thursday, from 4:30 to 5:30; volunteer tutors need not attend every session, although they will be expected to participate at least three-quarters of the time. Volunteers must undergo a simple background check and will receive a free, 1½ hour advance training from Read and Feed staff.
October Yard and Craft Sale: need help planning the event, contributions for yard sale, and crafts for sale: craftspeople will be able to rent a table or share the proceeds of their sales to support New Hope Road Alliance projects.
The NHRA (New Hope Road Alliance) is an alliance of 6 congregations along New Hope Road which have united together with the common goal of serving our changing neighborhood. Next meeting: Mon May 22, 1:30-2:30 p.m., New Hope Baptist Church. All members of the 6 congregations are welcome!
Wilburn Elementary School is the K-5 school on Marsh Road which serves our neighborhood. Wilder’s Grove is the all-volunteer Youth Center right next door to St. Mark’s.
My agency, The Center for Volunteer Caregiving, has been fortunate to partner with The Produce Box for a summer project. Aimed at serving low-income seniors and adults with disabilities, The Center will receive free produce twice a month for June, July, and August. These Care Receivers have difficulty affording fresh produce, and often cannot get transportation to grocery stores regularly. If you are able to help distribute boxes of produce, please email or call me. I will have more specific delivery dates later in the month.
My email is rpollock@ctrvolcare.org – phone number is (919) 460-0567.
Put on your dancing shoes and join us for a Spring Sock Hop in our Community Life Center on Saturday, April 29, 7:30 to 10 pm. Music will be provided by Adult Supervision.
We will feature good old rock ’n’ roll from the ’50s, ’60s, ’70’, ’80s and today. Admission is free. Donations will be accepted for St. Mark’s ministries. Bring a snack and a beverage to share.
Also, you can help make this a true “Sock Hop” by bringing new, still-packaged children’s socks for the children of Wilburn Elementary School. Please see Lynne Poole or Linda Bamford of the Social Action Committee for more information.
We will be delivering Meals on Wheels again Monday, April 24, 2017.
If any of you are interested in joining us for lunch at Pam’s Farmhouse Restaurant around 12:30 p.m., that would be wonderful. If you are interested, please let me know and I will arrange for a separate room for us to meet. Good food and good fellowship. You can join us even if you are not delivering that day! Just let me know.
Join us on Saturday, April 22, as we observe St. Mark’s Day by gathering at 9 am in service to our community and to our church. There will be something for everyone to do, regardless of age or physical condition. The morning will end with lunch provided in our Community Life Center. It will be a great family affair and a way to model for our young people ways that we can all serve.
Starting April 2, look for sign-up in the Concourse and during Community Time in our Community Life Center for these activities:
St. Mark’s Spring Cleaning
Inside the Centrum: Vacuuming the chair s and dusting furniture. Please bring your vacuum cleaners that have hoses/upholstery attachments for cleaning the blue chairs.
Outside our buildings: Tidying flower beds, trimming and planting in the Memorial Garden, Covenant Garden and general grounds.
Spring Arbor Assisted Living: Join us at this facility across New Hope Road for a sing-along for the residents with musical accompaniment, lyrics and refreshments. Singers and non-singers needed for setup, cleanup and companionship.
Care Packages for homebound St. Mark’s members: In support of the new Pastoral Visitors Ministry, we will assemble bags with nonperishable goodies, such as note cards and stamps, healing prayers and devotionals, etc. for the visitors to take with them on their first visits as tokens of our love and concern. This is a good activity for young children and those young at heart who need a less physically demanding task.
Wilder’s Grove provides youth programs at their facility behind St. Mark’s. Part of the land on which this facility is located is provided by St. Mark’s. The New Hope Road Alliance has taken the organization as one of its service projects. (Photo courtesy of Wilder’s Grove)
In support of the new sponsorship of Wilder’s Grove Youth Center as an NHRA initiative, the board of the New Hope Road Alliance has voted to match all donations made by individuals or groups to benefit the center. This means that the $290 raised so far this year has turned into $580. Funds which come in this spring/summer will be used to pay for much-needed renovations in the center’s restrooms.
The New Hope Road Alliance is sponsoring three Wilder’s Grove events this spring:
Fellowship Cookout April 1, 11 am to 2 pm. St. Mar k’s will provide side dishes – sign up in the Concourse.
Campus Clean-up Day is Saturday, May 20.
Bathroom renovations A project manager is needed. For more information or to volunteer, see Jessie Maeck jsmaeck@aol.com, or 617-549-7285.
The NHRA is an alliance of six congregations along New Hope Road which have united together with the common goal of serving our changing neighborhood. Meetings are monthly and are open to all members of the six congregations. Join us!
St. Mark’s volunteers will deliver Meals on Wheels this Monday, Feb. 27.
If any of you are interested in joining us for lunch at Pam’s Farmhouse Restaurant around 12:30 p.m., that would be wonderful. If you are interested, please let me know and I will arrange for a separate room for us to meet. Good food and good fellowship. You can join us even if you are not delivering that day! Just let me know. Joanne Bass
The Social Action Committee has much to discuss Sunday. Please plan to attend our Social Action Committee meeting this Sunday, Jan. 29, from noon to 1pm in one of the classrooms of our Community Life Center.
Because we haven’t had a meeting since before the holidays, we have much to discuss and plan, including our community partnership with Wilder’s Grove Youth Center and the annual St. Mark’s Day of Service.
Please try to attend this important meeting.
Lynne Poole and Linda Bamford
St. Mark’s and the New Hope Road Alliance will continue tutoring reading through Read and Feed, a free after-school program at Wilburn Elementary, and we need more tutors.
You are needed to help tutor third- though fifth-graders in reading beginning Feb. 2.
No experience with education and/or tutoring is required.
Training is provided for potential volunteers on Tuesday, Jan. 24, 6 to 7:30 pm at the Read and Feed Office, 193 High House Road, Cary. If you are not available that day, other sessions will be available. Read and Feed is a free, school-based program that meets Thursdays from 4:30 to 5:30 pm at Wilburn Elementary School on Marsh Creek Road (off New Hope Road). You don’t have to be available for every session; however, if possible, you need to be available for 75 percent of the sessions during the year.
As a nonprofit, Read and Feed serves more than 650 children each year at 26 program sites in Raleigh, Apex, Garner, Fuquay-Varina, Holly Springs, Rolesville, Knightdale and Zebulon. Wilburn Elementary is one of the new sites for the 2016-17 school year.
Our mission
The mission of Read and Feed is to give low-income elementary children an appetite for reading by strengthening literacy skills and providing encouragement in a nurturing environment. The program provides meals, mentors to help children read, and books to build home libraries. After every session, each child takes home three books to keep and to start building a home library.
Tutoring sessions begin with a meal, free to students, which was purchased at a discount from the Inter-Faith Food Shuttle or an area restaurant. After dinner, volunteers read to the children, listen to them read aloud and help with reading and spelling.
As a tool for the volunteers, Read and Feed keeps a folder for each child that includes notes on the child’s progress as well as checklists completed by the child’s classroom teacher.
You can learn more about Read and Feed at www.readandfeed.org.
We will need financial contributions; your donation will be matched dollar-for-dollar by the alliance. Please contribute before June 20, as we need to pay for supplies. Make out a check to New Hope Road Alliance and give it to Jessie Maeck, or you can send it to the Alliance in care of its treasurer, Don Betts, CPA; 2624 Leighton Ridge Drive, Suite 100; Wake Forest, NC 27587.
