How You Can Help With The July/August Backpack Drive For SafeFamilies Children

What can make kids very HAPPY?  Being able to go to school and having the right school supplies!  Here is how you can help! 

Our church has the opportunity to provide backpacks of school supplies for children in Safe Families care through our His Heart and Hands Orphan Ministry.  Many of these children are in a crisis situation and we have been able to help by providing basic items so that they can begin the school year prepared. 
When you are out shopping in the next few weeks, could you pick up any of the following items or fill a backpack for a very special child?

• Erasers
• Pens - blue, black or red
• Filler Paper
• Glue Sticks or Bottle of Glue
• Index Cards
• Graph Paper
• Highlighters
• Book Covers
• Markers
• Colored Pencils
• 24 pack Crayons
• Pencils - mechanical or #2
• Rulers
• 2-Pocket Folders
• 3-Ring Binders
• Spiral Notebooks - single, 3-subject or 5-subject
• Calculators
• Backpacks
• Other Needs - Socks, Underwear, Toothbrushes

Sunday July(TBD) to Sunday, August (TBD) there will be a collection box in the church narthex to drop items off.  If you don’t want to shop but still want to participate, any financial donations will be graciously accepted for purchasing items too!

THANKS FOR YOUR SUPPORT!

What's Been Happening These Last Few Months

HONDURAS TRIP - We will be be taking a group down to Honduras to visit two orphanages and do some light projects from January 17 to 24, 2015. This is a great inter-generational trip for anyone age 12 or over. Please email jan@opcrc.org soon if you would like to go. It's a life-changing experience!
NEEDED - If you have any wheeled luggage that you no longer need,  we would love to use it to transport things down to Honduras. Please contact Jan Kamp if you can help.
We will also be taking down pop-can tabs that the girls use to make purses and travel-size soap, shampoo, toothbrushes, etc.

ORPHAN SUNDAY THANK YOU -  We are so grateful for so many of you who came to the Orphan Sunday services and the International Dinner. Thank you for all the support and encouragement you have given to the Orphan Ministry over the past 6 years.
Linda shared with us about the upside and the downside of visiting the sponsored children in Honduras. She talked about how 2 of the older girls had left the orphanage and ended up in trafficking.  Well, this week we received word from Arvil that one of the girls came back.  She said she realized that Arvil and Miriam are the only people who truly showed her love. Praise God for answers to prayer.

THESE 400 UPDATE - On Orphan Sunday,, Allison spoke on church about These 400, the project through Bethany Christian Services to find homes for 400 special needs and aging- out children. We found out this week that 70 of the 400 have found homes! Praise God!
Please keep praying for a home for Nicholas, the little boy from Bulgaria with Down's syndrome.

RAISE THE ROOF PROJECT - THANK YOU to so many of you who took an envelope to help raise the funds to replace the roof on Hogar Amor Orphanage.  So far, about 75% of the funds have already come in, so we are close to getting things going.  We're grateful to God for the amazing response to this special need!

BETHANY ANNUAL PICNIC - was again another beautiful enjoyable picnic at Camp Manitoqua. Families blessed by children adopted into their families and those caring for SafeFamilies children enjoyed food, fellowship and a demonstration from a local class of kids doing Taekwondo.

BACKPACK DRIVE - We are grateful for all the contributions towards all the school supplies that we were able to give to SafeFamilies.  These supplies will benefit the futures of many children.

TRAFFICK FREE 5K - a group from our church participated in the 5K walk to expand the awareness of the trafficking that goes on here in our own cities and communities.  We are learning more about how we can help and care for these girls and giving them a better future.

Praising God for your heart for the fatherless and HHH Orphan Ministry!
His Heart and Hands Orphan Ministry Task Force

Backpack Drive Totals!

Fifteen completed backpacks were delivered to Bethany Christian Services Safe Families program.

Allison Loerop and Carol Bosma today delivered the remaining backpacks and school supplies to Meredith at Lydia in Chicago.

They were so appreciative of our church's generosity and send their THANKS and look forward to more interaction with our church and ministry. 

Backpack Drive is Gonna Make Kids SMILE!

What can make kids very HAPPY?  Being able to go to school and having the right school supplies!  Here is how you can help!

Our church has the opportunity to provide backpacks of school supplies for children in Safe Families care through our His Heart and Hands Orphan Ministry.   When you are out shopping in the next few weeks, could you pick up any of the following items or fill a backpack for a very special child?

• Backpacks
• pink erasers
• pens
• filler paper
• markers
• colored pencils
• crayons (24pk)
• calculators
• #2 pencils, rulers
• 2 Pocket folders
• 2” 3-ring binde
• wide ruled spiral notebooks

Sunday, July 28 - Sunday, August 4 there will be a collection box in the church narthex to drop items off.  If you don’t want to shop, any financial donations will be graciously accepted for purchasing items too.

 

What's been happening at HHH lately.....and what is next!

It's time once again to update you on all that God has been doing in HHH's exciting ministry!

1. What an amazing response we have seen on our Nehemiah Wall Project!!  To date the Nehemiah Project has been able to send $44,000 raised to All God's Children for the work being done on the wall.  It is now 3/4 completed!  Praise God as he is providing protection for the Hogar Amor orphanage in Honduras!
2. Orland Church's Preschool had their annual Trikathon at the end of their school year and peddled their way to raising an awesome $2800 for the Nehemiah Project.  Way to go you incredible kids!
3. Our recent Rummage (Garage) Sale raised about $4000 towards our adoption cost assistance portion of HHH's ministry.  Thanks to Tammy H. & Allison L for their vision and work on putting on this sale.
4. We hosted an evening out at Charming Charlies raising $136 from the sales.  But more importantly the night was an opportunity to continue to be able to expose the purpose and awareness of our ministry.

 What are the upcoming HHH events that we'd love to have you join us in? 

1. BACKPACK DRIVE - we will be collecting school supplies during the week of July 29-August 5 for Safe Families. Watch in your local sales papers for great deals to purchase items below:
   
   • Backpacks
   • pink erasers 
   • pens
   • filler paper
   • markers
   • colored pencils,
   • crayons (24pk),
   • calculators 
   • #2 pencils 
   • rulers
   • 2 Pocket folders
   • 2” 3-ring binder
   • wide ruled spiral notebooks
2. BETHANY ADOPTION PICNIC is Saturday, August 18.  An annual celebration/reunion picnic for adoptive families held at Camp Manitoqua in Frankfort.  Volunteer to help at the picnic.
3. ORPHAN SUNDAY will be on October 28th.  There will be guest speakers sharing their stories of adoption or work with children in need.  At noon is the annual international dinner where your taste buds can try different ethnic foods -- always a special treat -- with more stories about the children's lives being changed through our supporters of the HHH ministry.
4. HONDURAS ORPHANAGE TRIP -   Consider a visit to Hogar Amor Orphanage in Honduras.  Annually a group makes a trip to the orphanage in early January to visit the children through our connection with All God's Children.  During the trip a child or two may touch your life too!. As of this posting dates for the trip have not been confirmed yet.

94 Safe Families / Lydia Home Foster Kids Receive Backpacks!

His Heart and Hands Orphan Ministry, along with Safe Families and Lydia Home, would like to give a big THANKS to everyone who made this year's Backpack Drive a blessing to so many kids!  HHH was able to fill 94 backpacks with school supplies to be handed out to Safe Families and Lydia Home kids --- to give them the necessary starting tools to have a great beginning to their school year and education.

Filling the backpacks

94 Backpacks!

Proud helpers delivering to Lydia House

Some fun too!

BACKPACK DRIVE July 31 - August 7

99 Backpacks!

Thank you to everyone who participated in our recent backpack drive for foster kids.  We were able to fill 99 backpacks to hand out to foster kids through Lydia House.

Backpack Drive For Foster Kids August 1-8

We are once again collecting school supplies to fill backpacks for children in foster care the week of August 1 to 8. Basic things like pencils, pens, erasers, folders, notebook paper, crayons, markers, rulers, glue sticks, and colored pencils will be collected. Backpacks are welcomed too! Start watching the sale papers toward the end of July when everything starts to go on sale and place your donations in the box at church.

47 Backpacks To LSSI - THANK YOU Everyone!

A big "THANK YOU!!" to everyone who contributed generously to our 2nd Annual Backpack Drive! We were able to send 47 filled backpacks, PLUS additional school supplies to Lutheran Social Services of IL for their upcoming Health and Education Expo. Know that you have helped kids in foster care have a good head start in the upcoming school year.
As we were completing filling the last backpacks at church after the evening service, one comment Annette Hulford made just sums up this backpack drive well. Annette said, "When we did foster care we did not have anything like this (free school supplies). This is so wonderful!"

Backpack Drive For LSSI Foster Kids

We are once again sponsoring a backpack drive for the Lutheran Social Services of Illinois. The school supplies we collect will be handed out to foster kids at their annual Expo. School supply drop off at church deadline is Sunday, July 12.
These are the following items needed:

• backpacks

• #2 pencils
• crayons 24 pks
• colored pencils

-->pink erasers

markers

calculators

2" 3-ring binders

2 pocket folders

loose-leaf paper (wide rule)

rulers

pens

spiral notebooks (wide rule)

Bring items to church anytime, June 28th through July 12th deadline.

54 Backpacks For Foster Kids!

How awesome! The response was GREAT! With only a few weeks notice and the generosity of so many of Orland Park Church members, we were able to put together 54 backpacks of school supplies together for the Lutheran Social Services of Illinois. Lutheran Social Services of Illinois each year, for the past several years, has handed out free backpacks to foster kids at their Heath and Education Expo.
It was exciting to see the bin set aside for dropping off school supplies fill so quickly each Sunday! Our task force had so much fun getting together on Sunday night, August 3rd, to fill each of these backpacks not only with school supplies, but all passing on the caring hearts of all those who had a part in our "Backpacks for foster kids" event.