community service

Saskatchewan Mennonites volunteer with Okanagan Gleaners

Delilah and Brian Roth peel and chop onions at Okanagan Gleaners.

Members of Rosthern (Sask.) Mennonite Church volunteered with Okanagan Gleaners for five days in September. Pictured from left to right, they are Denise Epp, Larry Epp, Delilah Roth, Brian Roth, Bev Epp, Ralph Epp, Judy Epp, Cheryl Schmidt and Lloyd Schmidt.

A small group of volunteers from Rosthern Mennonite Church spent five days in September chopping and dehydrating vegetables at Okanagan Gleaners near Oliver, B.C. Among them were Larry and Denise Epp.

A very meaningful relationship

The exercise group at Foothills Mennonite Church. (Photo courtesy of June Miller)

In the fall of 2015, members of the neighbourhood community association asked if they could use our lower auditorium at Foothills Mennonite Church here in Calgary for a group of seniors for an exercise program.

Kate Janzen was the church's outreach trustee at the time, and she helped facilitate the request. Two University of Calgary students volunteered to be in the instructors. Rudy Wiens and I, members at Foothills, volunteered to set up the chairs, make coffee and clean up for the weekly morning session.

Church garden provides produce for soup kitchen

The garden at Grace Mennonite Church in Steinbach, Man., donates its produce to local soup kitchen, Soup’s On. (Photo by Larry Friesen)

Larry Friesen, garden coordinator, shows a harvest of potatoes from the garden. (Photo courtesy of Larry Friesen)

Sharon Reimer picks cucumbers from the garden. (Photo by Larry Friesen)

Betty Koop showcases the garden’s tall tomato plants. (Photo by Larry Friesen)

In the summer of 2004, Joy Neufeld opened the first soup kitchen in Steinbach. Fifteen years later, Soup’s On is still serving its community and is thriving.

Neufeld, a member of Grace Mennonite Church in Steinbach, started the project because she loved working in the kitchen. “I just love cooking and baking, but the last thing Steinbach needed was another restaurant,” she says. 

Mennonite organizations help Montreal church with renovations

Peter Kroeker, a Mennonite Disaster Service volunteer from Vineland (Ont.) United Mennonite Church, works on the exit stairs during renovations at Hochma Mennonite Church to bring its basement homeless shelter up to code. (Photos by Nicholas Hamm)

Silvain L’hereault, Hochma Mennonite Church’s shelter coordinator, gives a thumbs-up in thanks for the 30 quilts from Mennonite Central Committee Ontario that will be enough to carry the ministry through the season and allow it to discard some of its threadbare bedding. (Photo by Nicholas Hamm)

Every night, from November to April, volunteers from Hochma Mennonite Church in Montreal open its doors as a warming centre for some 40 people who are experiencing homelessness. The church wants to become a licenced shelter operating year-round, but its building needs roughly $200,000 worth of renovations to bring it up to code. 

Volunteers ‘go beyond’ in the community

Grade 9 Rockway students Thomas Klassen, left, and Haolin Li repair bicycles at the Working Centre’s Recycle Cycles shop in downtown Kitchener, Ont. (Rockway Mennonite Collegiate photo)

Our journey at Rockway focuses on students developing an ability to lead with compassion when classroom learning is extended so they can live out Christ-centred values, develop empathy and perspective, and serve the community locally and globally. This is the inspiration behind Rockway’s new Students Learning in Community (SLIC) partnerships. 

‘It was just helping people’

An updated photo shows Keith Wagler with his appliance repair van, in his early years. (Photo courtesy of the House of Friendship)

Keith Wagler in 2018, before he retired after 34 years on the job. (Photo courtesy of the House of Friendship)

For 34 years, Keith Wagler lived out his Christian faith by serving others through the Appliance Repair Program of the House of Friendship (HoF), a social service agency in the Waterloo Region of Ontario. His job involved servicing and repairing appliances for people living on a low income, who could not afford to pay for a regular service call or to replace their appliances.

Encouraged to keep working

Goshen (Ind.) College president Jim Brenneman, left, presents the Culture for Service Award to alumnus Ray Funk at the college’s fall convocation and homecoming on Oct. 3. (Goshen College photo by Brian Yoder Schlabach)

“Everything I’ve done has been a team sport,” quips Ray Funk as he reflects on his life’s achievements.

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