Partnership with Hillcrest Community School
In 2019, Hillcrest United Methodist Church started a partnership with Hillcrest Community School, an art based elementary school in the Bloomington School District. Pre-Covid 19, Hillcrest UMC supported the school with special treats over the school year for the teachers, financial support, and support in the lunchroom as lunch servers. We are excited to continue that tradition into the 2021-2022 school year where we will continue supporting the teachers, staff, and students in new and creative ways!
Continued Support for “Every Meal”
At the beginning of 2021, your Outreach Team committed to supporting “Every Meal” (formerly The Sheridan Story). From their website, www.everymeal.org, they say: “More than 300,000 children in Minnesota live with food insecurity. When these children don’t have access to the free and reduced meal programs at school, they don’t have access to reliable food and the risk of hunger is very real. Every Meal works to fight hunger in our community by filling the gaps in food access that children face during weekends, summers, and extended breaks.” Over 2021, Hillcrest UMC has pledged to give $1,700 to support this organization.
School Supplies for Bloomington School District
In July 2021, Hillcrest UMC collected a special offering for “School Supplies”. These supplies were delivered to VEAP (www.veap.org) at the end of July to be distributed to the students of Bloomington. Your special donations brought in $790.00 to spend on school supplies!
Love Offering, Global Ministries Missionary Support, Father’s Day
In June 2021, we supported two ministries within the United Methodist Church. Both offerings were taken from our “Easter Offering”.
$500 was sent to the Minnesota Conference of United Methodist Churches to support the Annual Conference “Love Offering”. All money recieved for the Love offering will go to support: 1- The Methodist Border Friendship Commission (50%) 2- Ruby’s Pantry host churches (20%) 3- Matthew 25 food distribution (20%) & 4- Volunteers in Mission Scholarships (10%). More information about the Love Offering can be found at: https://www.minnesotaumc.org/loveoffering
$500 was sent to support Ardel Graner, a missionary with the Global Ministries. Hillcrest UMC has supported The Graner family over many, many years of service. Ardel, who is currently in the Dominican Republic, will retire in September 2021. More information on her missionary work can be found at: https://umcmission.org/missionary-bio/10836z/
On Father’s Day 2021, we celebrated the men of our church by giving a special devotional and gift, provided by the Outreach Committee.
“Welcome Home!” & Mother’s Day
In May 2021, we had the opportunity to celebrate TWO events! On Sunday, May 9, 2021 we welcomed our congregation back into the building for worship! This was our first inside, in person worship since March 2020! We celebrated with homemade treats from Pastor Jill. We also celebrated Mother’s Day for all the women of the church, with special Mother’s Day devotional and gift. These were given to the women by the Outreach Committee.
Easter Outreach Offering
In April 2021, we focused our Outreach on Easter – delivering over 200 Easter devotionals to our friends and family of Hillcrest UMC. On Easter Sunday, we asked our congregation to give a special “Easter Offering” that would be used at the discretion of our Outreach Team. Because of your amazing generosity, we brought in over $1900.00 to be used as the hands and feet of Jesus!
Easter Meals
In March 2021, we had a fundraising event to collect money to provide “EASTER MEAL” bags to those experiencing food insecurities. We set a goal of $600 to prepare these bags – filled with a small ham, potatoes, vegetable, bread and dessert – and you EXCEEDED that goal! We were able to prepare 30 bags that fed over 20 families!
Valentine’s Day Boxes
Special boxes, filled with homemade cookies, special love day treats, and fun activities were assembled and delivered to our friends and family of Hillcrest UMC. Your financial support fully covered the costs of these boxes and more. Through these boxes we were able to reconnect with many who have been distant because of Covid-19.
