St. Thomas’s will host Code Orange on the following Saturdays between noon or 1:00 and 4:00 or 5:00 p.m.: July 20, August 3, and August 24, 2024. The exact times are still to be determined. Madeline and Amy will both be out of town on July 20, 2024, so we will need additional help that Saturday.

What is Code Orange?

Last year, Friendship House found it challenging to predict the feels like temperature during the summer months. Because of this, we are offering Code Orange every Saturday July and August afternoon in Newark. This would provide heat relief for people unhoused in Newark every day, assuming they can visit a faith community on Sundays. 

How can I help?

We need three to five people to host our friends.  We will provide cold water, a place to sit, and an opportunity to use the bathroom. Light snacks would also be wonderful to offer and Friendship House can offer go-bags if we are not able to provide snacks.

Training is available via Zoom on Tuesday, June 18, 2024, from 4:00 to 5:00 p.m. and again on Friday, June 21, 2024 at 2:00 to 3:00 p.m.  Please let Madeline or Amy know if you are interested in attending a training session so we can send you the link.

Please let us know if you have any questions.  We look forward to helping our friends in town this summer!  Thank you for your consideration.

Dear Families of St. Thomas’s and St. Nicholas,

Next Monday, June 17, 2024, is our opportunity to serve at Hope Dining Room. Hope Dining Room where we serve “a midday hot meal with dignity, to those in need in the Greater Newark Delaware area.”

Guests at Hope are “dining in”, so we have 2 different short shifts for which you can volunteer. The setup and cooking shift goes from 10 – 11:45 a.m. The serving and cleanup shift goes from 11:45 – 1:30 p.m.

If you’d like to help, please bring a ball cap and an apron. We would LOVE to see you! All of this takes place at Kingswood Methodist Church kitchen on Marrows Road in Brookside Park. It is a team effort, lots of fun and it makes you feel so good to feed people who really appreciate it.

Please volunteer for the things we need for the meal and to volunteer. If you are donating one of those items, THANK YOU! You can bring it to St. Thomas’s, Monday – Thursday from 9 – noon, OR when you come to church on Sunday! Please put it in the kitchen and mark it for “HOPE DINING ROOM”.  If that doesn’t fit into your schedule, give me a call, text or email and I will pick it up at your house.

MANY Blessings to you ALL,
Madeline Johnson
mad1240@comcast.net

Dear Families of St. Thomas’s and St. Nicholas,

Next Monday, April 15, 2024, is our opportunity to serve at Hope Dining Room. Hope Dining Room where we serve “a midday hot meal with dignity, to those in need in the Greater Newark Delaware area.”

Guests at Hope are “dining in”, so we have 2 different short shifts for which you can volunteer. The setup and cooking shift goes from 10 – 11:45 a.m. The serving and cleanup shift goes from 11:45 – 1:30 p.m.

If you’d like to help, please bring a ball cap and an apron. We would LOVE to see you! All of this takes place at Kingswood Methodist Church kitchen on Marrows Road in Brookside Park. It is a team effort, lots of fun and it makes you feel so good to feed people who really appreciate it.

Please volunteer for the things we need for the meal and to volunteer.

If you are donating one of those items, THANK YOU! You can bring it to St. Thomas’s, Monday – Thursday from 9 – noon, OR when you come to church on Sunday! Please put it in the kitchen and mark it for “HOPE DINING ROOM”.  If that doesn’t fit into your schedule, give me a call, text or email and I will pick it up at your house.

MANY Blessings to you ALL,
Madeline Johnson
mad1240@comcast.net

Dear Families of St. Thomas’s and St. Nicholas,

Next Monday, March 18, 2024, is our opportunity to serve at Hope Dining Room. Hope Dining Room where we serve “a midday hot meal with dignity, to those in need in the Greater Newark Delaware area.”

Guests at Hope are “dining in”, so we have 2 different short shifts for which you can volunteer. The setup and cooking shift goes from 10 – 11:45 a.m. The serving and cleanup shift goes from 11:45 – 1:30 p.m.

If you’d like to help, please bring a ball cap and an apron. We would LOVE to see you! All of this takes place at Kingswood Methodist Church kitchen on Marrows Road in Brookside Park. It is a team effort, lots of fun and it makes you feel so good to feed people who really appreciate it.

Please volunteer for the things we need for the meal and to volunteer.

If you are donating one of those items, THANK YOU! You can bring it to St. Thomas’s, Monday – Thursday from 9 – noon, OR when you come to church on Sunday! Please put it in the kitchen and mark it for “HOPE DINING ROOM”.  If that doesn’t fit into your schedule, give me a call, text or email and I will pick it up at your house.

MANY Blessings to you ALL,
Madeline Johnson
mad1240@comcast.net

There is a big new nonperishable-food collection basket in the Great Hall. To understand the importance of keeping this basket full, see if you know the answer to this question:

“Who is poor enough to qualify for food assistance in Newark, Delaware?”

St. Thomas’s “Blue Hen Bounty” food pantry, with its focus on college students, says simply that if you need food, you can come here when the pantry is open and take what you need. Likewise, Newark’s churches invite hungry people to receive, without demonstrating a government-certified need, a weekday hot meal at Hope Dining Room. People without housing can receive food from the Newark Empowerment Center.

However, most Newark families and individuals who live in poverty depend for food on SNAP (“Food Stamps”), a monthly credit used to purchase groceries. Each person’s eligibility is established by officials at the Hudson State Service Center who review the applicants’ income tax returns to see how much they are earning in proportion to their family size. If their qualify for Food Stamps, they qualify also for Food Bank pantries that are open for one day toward the end of each month, when most people’s Food Stamp money has run out. Poor people must prove their eligibility annually to continue receiving food assistance.

Now, what happens when an emergency—illness, injury, a layoff—occurs to a family provider who already depends on Food Stamps? This is when the Newark Area Welfare Committee comes in. The Hudson Center will refer you to the NAWC. To receive help from the NAWC, you must prove, through the Hudson Center, that, with an interruption to your income, you are the poorest of the City of Newark’s poor.

St. Thomas’s, along the rest of Newark’s churches, has contributed food to the NAWC for many decades—probably since 1920. Parishioners have brought nonperishables to church on Sundays and placed them in a wicker basket located in the narthex on the way into the nave of the church. Volunteers from the parish then take the weekly donation over to the NAWC food pantry, which is housed at the Methodist Church on Main Street.

In the past year, there have been almost no contributions to the old wicker basket in the narthex, which is hard to see in its old location. So, it has been replaced with a big white basket in the Great Hall. Our parish volunteers, Jack and Marge O’Donnell, are ready to deliver your donations to the NAWC each week. If you are able, please bring to the new basket extra food items you pick up when shopping for your own groceries.

“Inasmuch as you have done it to the least of these . . . you have done it to me.”

Dear Families of St. Thomas’s and St. Nicholas,

Next Monday, December 18, 2023, is our opportunity to serve at Hope Dining Room. Hope Dining Room where we serve “a midday hot meal with dignity, to those in need in the Greater Newark Delaware area.” Guests at Hope are now “dining in”, so we have 2  different short shifts for which you can volunteer.  The setup and cooking shift goes from 10 – 11:45 a.m. The serving and cleanup shift goes from 11:45 – 1:30 p.m.

If you’d like to help, please bring a ball cap and an apron. We would LOVE to see you! All of this takes place at Kingswood Methodist Church kitchen on Marrows Road in Brookside Park. It is a team effort, lots of fun and it makes you feel so good to feed people who really appreciate it.

Please volunteer for the things we need for the meal and to volunteers. If you are donating one of those items, THANK YOU! You can bring it to St. Thomas’s, Monday – Thursday from 9 – noon, OR when you come to church on Sunday! Please put it in the kitchen and mark it for “HOPE DINING ROOM”.  If that doesn’t fit into your schedule, give me a call, text or email and I will pick it up at your house.

MANY Blessings to you ALL,
Madeline Johnson
mad1240@comcast.net

Code Purple is a program administered by Friendship House to provide a warm dinner and overnight shelter for our homeless friends when overnight temperatures drop to 20 degrees Fahrenheit or less. The location rotates among five churches in Newark, Delaware and St. Thomas’s is proud to be among them. Please watch for updates when the forecast calls for cold temperatures. Volunteers will be needed. Thank you for your consideration.

Dear Families of St. Thomas’s and St. Nicholas,

Monday, November 20, 2023 is our opportunity to serve at Hope Dining Room where we serve “a midday hot meal with dignity, to those in need in the Greater Newark Delaware area.” Guests at Hope are now “dining in”, so we have 2  different short shifts for which you can volunteer.  The setup and cooking shift goes from 10 – 11:45 a.m. The serving and cleanup shift goes from 11:45 – 1:30 p.m.

IF you’d like to help, please bring a ball cap and an apron. We would LOVE to see you! All of this takes place at Kingswood Methodist Church kitchen on Marrows Road in Brookside Park. It is a team effort, lots of fun and it makes you feel so good to feed people who really appreciate it.

Please volunteer for the things we need for the meal and to volunteers. If you are donating one of those items, THANK YOU! You can bring it to St. Thomas’s, Monday – Thursday from 9 – noon, OR when you come to church on Sunday! Please put it in the kitchen and mark it for “HOPE DINING ROOM”.  If that doesn’t fit into your schedule, give me a call, text or email and I will pick it up at your house.

MANY Blessings to you ALL,
Madeline Johnson

      mad1240@comcast.net