Opportunities to help the less fortunate

Thank you for publishing Rick Owens’s letter spotlighting homeless members of our community. As some of the many members of Samaritans By Grace, we invite Rick and anyone else to help us feed those good folks.
We are members of First United Methodist Church — one of the huge churches next to Noël Plaza noted in Rick’s letter titled, “More compassion needed” in the Nov. 8 Odessa American.

There are several ways our members serve the homeless and those who are hungry. Each Sunday at 10 a.m., some of us gather in our church’s kitchen to make sack lunches. By 10:30, we are out of the kitchen and in the same park where Owens took his family. By 11:15, most of the 30 sandwiches and bottles of water are distributed among the men and women who show up.

If the weather keeps them from coming to the park, we divide the sandwiches among ourselves and drive around the neighborhood looking for people standing in doorways or huddled in building corners. We give them the sack lunches wherever we find them.

It’s amazing how once your eyes and hearts are opened to those in need, you see them everywhere.

On the special occasions that our congregation joins in fellowship together with a meal inside our fellowship hall, we always include those in the park by taking them a hot meal if they are not comfortable coming inside when they are invited.

If Rick can’t help us on Sundays, then he might help on the second and fourth Mondays of the month. That’s when our Food Pantry is open to anyone needing groceries. It is not uncommon that clothing is given out at the same time sacks of groceries are distributed.

Our church also houses the Children’s Clothes Closet, which provides clothing to children in need. Rick might want to join the volunteers who work at that. The Children’s Clothes Closet a coalition among several churches.

Rick’s 2-year-old son could learn about caring for the homeless through our children’s ministry “I Can Help” campaign.

Each year, our k-sixth graders collect canned goods during the month of October. Then those canned goods are given to the Food Bank.

Other members with servant-hearts meet once a month to help homeowners with various repair jobs. This group, The Body, helps total strangers with cleaning yards, repairing roofs, plumbing, painting and other odd jobs — at no expense to the homeowner.

If Rick wants a more hands-on helping experience, join us on Nov. 22 when we distribute Thanksgiving meals to 200 needy families here in Odessa. We will be given the names and addresses of families who need help this year. We need the addresses because we will be taking the food directly to their front doors. We are working in conjunction with H-E-B to buy a complete Thanksgiving meal for these families.

The servant-members of First United Methodist will buy the food and then deliver the food to the families.

These are some of the things our church does inside and outside of our church walls. If anyone wants to know more, please browse http://www.sharinglifeodessa.com/.

We look forward to having Rick and anyone else serve with us.