PAZ DE CRISTO

As part of the mission of University Presbyterian Church, we prepare and serve dinner at Paz de Cristo to 225 + people, the 4th Tuesday of every month. Each 4th Tuesday we require 12-15 people to prepare dinner from 4 to 5:30 p.m. and another 12-15 to serve (and then clean-up!) from 5:30 to 7:15 p.m. Paz is located at 424 W. Broadway in Mesa. Besides providing a meal each night of the year, Paz assists families with food boxes, hygiene items, job searches, etc.  Thanks for the continuing support from  the congregation with peanut butter and jelly, hotel shampoo, soap, lotion, razors, etc.  If you would like more information please call Barbara Hillyard at 480-966-0673 or JimBarbHill@cox.net
 

I-HELP

We did it again and thank you to all who cooked and provided essential personal items, time, and did laundry for 28 very thankful men and women. We continue to help fill a very vital need in out community.

Friday, October 17, 2008

We will need a small group who can put out the necessary supplies, prepare a dinner, greet our guests and serve dinner. The organizers of I-HELP have monitors who spend the night and take care of cleaning up in the morning.

Watch for a sign up sheet on the patio for the people and supplies that will be needed each month. The greatest needs in addition to dinner and a take-away breakfast are, white socks, underwear, and T-shirts (medium size), lotion, shampoo, disposable razors, hand sanitizer and other travel size toiletries.

We can also use cash donations to help pay for the food we buy. Write a check to UPC and put I-HELP in the memo.

If you have questions or want to help, please call me at 480-966-0673 or email me at JimBarbHIll@cox.net.

Barbara Hillyard

JUST COFFEE

So you drink coffee?  Have you ever thought about who grows it?  How much do they get paid for their product?  Can they sustain and make a living in their homeland on what they make?

If you are interested in finding out more about how third world farmers are doing in our global economy, and...you love coffee, knowing more about UPC’s involvement in Just Coffee will be right up your alley.  Just Coffee (Just Coffee.org) is an economic development project of the border ministries of the Presbyterian Church and is attempting to address both economic disparities in our economic system as well as impacting undocumented migration into our country.  Just Coffee is a shade grown, organic, high mountain coffee from Chiapas, Mexico, and is sold every Sunday after the morning service. UPC has been instrumental in both the founding of this remarkable cooperative and its current growth into a model for Christian economic justice at work in our world.  

UMOM

(United Methodist Outreach Ministries)

For many years, UPC has been helping to serve the homeless in Phoenix at the UMOM overflow shelter in the winters.  This past spring, the City of Phoenix and other community groups decided to fund this ministry which allowed it to continue during the summer.  Several members and friends of UPC helped each month with serving meals to approximately 60 women and up to 10 families.

Now the winter season is here again and UPC has volunteered to serve meals on the first Tuesday of each month through March.  In January, we anticipate serving meals to 100 homeless women and up to 60 people in families.  The other months, we serve only the women.

We are looking for people who would be willing to cook at their homes or at UPC and then for others who would like to transport the food and serve it at the shelter.  If you are willing to do either, or both, please contact Joyce Godfrey, Barb Hillyard, Nancy Kaye, or Ruth McHenry for more information.

About Humane Borders

Hundreds of thousands of men, women and children face economic disaster in their homelands and migrate to the United States every year. Many of them come across the U.S.-Mexico border illegally in Arizona. Increasing numbers of them die every year making the attempt. The death toll is the direct result of U.S. border control policy, which ignores the economic forces on both sides of the border driving human beings to make such choices.

Humane Borders, motivated by faith, offers humanitarian assistance to those in need through more than 70 emergency water stations on and near the border.

Deployment of water saves lives and invites public discourse: We want to legalize the undocumented migrants now working and living in the United States; create a responsible guest worker program; increase the number of visas for Mexican nationals; demilitarize border; support economic development in Mexico; provide more federal aid for local medical service providers, law enforcement and adjudication, land owners and managers.

We invite federal, state, tribal and county organizations and agencies, as well as individuals, churches and humanitarian groups, to join in and support our life-saving efforts. We welcome all persons of good faith.

Water Stations

Our most visible public work is the creation and maintenance of a network of emergency water stations throughout the Arizona borderlands. In 2004, we also donated equipment and resources for water stations to be deployed on the Mexican side of the border.

Volunteers

Hundreds of volunteers from all walks of life and different faith traditions offer time and services to our humanitarian effort, including more than 70 trips weekly into the deserts to maintain our water stations in peak season.

Leadership

Rev. Robin Hoover, pastor of Tucson's First Christian Church, is co-founder and president of Humane Borders. All six officers of Humane Borders Inc. serve on a volunteer basis.

For more information visit their website at: www.humaneborders.org