The Tower Online

HomeFront Day in Sandy Hook a HUGE success!

It was awesome, we were very lucky to once again get a home in Newtown/Sandy Hook....this year's HomeFront team converged on the home of two wonderful people and started work, bright and shiny early, 7a.m.  There was landscaping work, painting, and a whole bunch of carpentry.  Everyone on our team was ready to go and SMILING.  We had adults and youth alike, we even had two youth from a parish in Monroe, and my husband, Todd arranged to have a local electrician with whom he often works, George Koloniaris come do some work.  It was fabulous!

The first saturday in May is traditionally HomeFront Day and while we had done these projects with HomeFront a number of years ago, we renewed the ministry through our Mission and Outreach commission for the second year in a row.  HomeFront for those who may not be aware, is a community-based, volunteer-driven home repair program that provides FREE repairs to low-income homeowners, thus enabling them to remain in their homes with an improved quality of life. Currently serving Fairfield, Hartford and New Haven Counties in Connecticut; and Westchester County, New York.  For more information on this wonderful charity, go to http://www.americareshomefront.org/  

Arlene, Martha, Rick, Paget, Cindy, Priscilla, Leslie, Jan, Jen P.,  Jen T., Donna, Jenna, and Mark, were cleaner uppers and landscapers extrodinaire!  The painting party consisted of Jen P., Paget, Emily, Diana, Kat, Greg, Margot, and Jeanne.  Jack and Brendan were put on gutter duty and did a GREAT job.  Mark, Larry, Dave, Rick, Todd, and James were the nail bangers for the day.  And Linda and Ruth were the lunch ladies extrordinaire.  What a terrific team!

Here are some pictures of our happy worker bees!  Just think, next year you can have this much fun! Almost 30 people this year gave some or all of their Saturday, and everyone gave of themselves.  

God Bless you all!

Team Trinity

 

Lunch ladies!

Hey look my cookie matches my outfit!

Many smiles!

The King of Drywall....Dave!

The Digging Crew (one of the crews anyway)

A well deserved break!

The counter top was the last thing to go in!  I think it was close to 6 p.m.  Just amazing.  

A JOB WELL DONE.

 

Trinity Christmas Pageant

 The Trinity Christmas Pageant 2010

Trinity Church held its annual Christmas Pageant on Sunday, December 19 at 4 p.m.  Over 300 people attended this beautiful candlelit service of lessons and carols. The story of the Nativity was told in a tableau format with the 4^th and 5^th graders as the cast of angels, shepherds, King Herod, the 3 wise men and their pages.  Pastor Kathleen Adams-Shepherd was the narrator and the music was provided by the youth choirs: The Trinity Choristers and the Primary Choir with Fiona Smith Sutherland as the director. 

The gifts on the steps were brought in by the children who attended the pageant.  They are for the children at Amos House - a transitional homeless facility in Danbury, and were taken there in time for Christmas.

Sue Vogelman, Minister of Children and Youth Education directed the pageant. “This was my 10^th pageant as director and it was just beautiful. The kids did a great job as usual.”  The Symes family portrayed the Holy Family with Christopher as Joseph, Heather as Mary, and 3 month old Ryder as baby Jesus.  Mason Symes (2 years old) portrayed a little angel who flitted around the manger.  Christopher Symes was also in the pageant almost 20 years ago as a shepherd.  His parents (Curt and Connie Symes) were thrilled to see their own child and then their grandchild be in the Trinity pageant  a few decades later!

 

Greetings Trinity Parishioners and friends!

Here is our monthly update from the Sustainable Philanthropy Committee, part of the Mission and Outreach Commission. We have received a portion of the Parish’s Mission and Outreach budget so that we can make kiva loans to the poor around the world in support of the Millennium Development Goals. We call ourselves “sustainable” because as borrowers repay their loans, we can help more people with the same money.

We met in late June to establish our Mission and a loan process so that we can prayerfully be good stewards of the Parish’s assets. Since that time we have made:

• 69 loans in 29 countries of which 15 were funded by borrower repayments
• To date, our borrowers have a 2.0% delinquency (most delinquencies are cleared up within 60 days) and 0% default rate
• 9 loans were repaid and we expect 10 more loans will be fully repaid later this month

To see the loans that we have made, check out our lender page http://www.kiva.org/lender/trinitychurch9574

Did you know you can buy kiva gift certificates as Christmas presents @ kiva.org

Check this space next month for more updates!

 

A Look Ahead with the Communications Commission

By Curt Symes

In publishing this 1st version of the Trinity Tower for 2008 the commission has learned a great deal about communications across the Trinity Family. Our plan is to continue to publish the printed Tower quarterly, aligned around major events, like the Youth and Music Activities, highlighted in this August issue. We also plan to launch an “electronic” version of the Tower in the form of an on-line “Blog” which will enable immediate, electronic and global (for youth at college and parishioners out of the area) publication of Trinity events. These will complement the evolving update of the Trinity Website due to occur later this year.

In future editions we will be highlighting the various Commission and Committee activities, as well as other significant on-going activities at Trinity and across the Diocese of CT and Province 1 of which we are a part.

Please feel free to share your thoughts and suggestions for future articles; and let us know if we are on track in meeting your interests and needs. Scribble a note or email to Geoff Dent, myself or another member of the commission and tell us what you think.

Commission Members:
Hannah Albee
Bob Carter
Larry Coleman
Geoff Dent
Duane Langenwalter
Curt Symes
Sue Roman