Here are some opportunities to help local ministries during the Holiday season:

FISH CHRISTMAS CARDS are available in the church office.  For a donation of $5 you can feed a family of 4 for almost 3 days; for $10 you can feed two families. Please contact Sally Cleveland at 604-1400 or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it if you would like to place a special order.

ROSES CREEK – SHPC is adopting 30 families again this year from Roses Creek, a Land Trust Community in Coalfield, TN.   You or a Bible Study group, Sunday school class, or small group can choose from a single adult, a small family or a large family with several children. Gifts must be wrapped, tagged by individual and family, and delivered to the church no later than December 14.  Or you can donate $25 for a country ham to be purchased for each family.  Please contact Margaret Ritchie at 567-2636 or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it for more information.

POND GAP ELEMENTARY BOOK DRIVE – Books (suggestions are available in the literature racks at the back of the Sanctuary) may be purchased and dropped off in the designated boxes at both church entrances no later than December 11.  Bring a book – change a life!

VISIT THE SOAR ANGEL TREE located in the Spitzer Education Building lobby.  If you’d like to adopt a child, please take a name from the Angel Tree.  Wrapped gifts (tagged with child’s name) should be returned no later than December 16.

* * *

FISH HUNGER MINISTRY: 

A week prior to delivery day the SHPC Fish coordinator, usually Alice Mercer, queries volunteers by e-mail and telephone to see who is available to work. As her messages are returned, she tallies the volunteers and, allowing for last minute changes, estimates the number of 2-person delivery teams she will have the following Tuesday.

On the Sunday before Fish day, the coordinator calculates the number of bags SHPC will be able to deliver that month, estimating how many deliveries can be made given the number of volunteers, and then estimating based on previous experience how large the families are of the people who will call for food assistance on Tuesday.

In the meantime, the grocery transport coordinator, usually Barbara Eldridge, estimates the number of vehicles will be needed to transport the bags of food to SHPC, and contacts three or four regular drivers who have large vehicles.

On Monday these drivers travel to the West Knox Fish Pantry behind the Church of the Savior where they load the requisite bags and take them to Barron Hall. There they set up the tables and off load the bags.

Also on Monday the special needs coordinators, usually Kim Zirkle and Tamara Warner, assess how many special needs products, such as toilet tissue, soaps, diapers, etc., church members have contributed. They then estimate any paper product and toiletry shortages. Volunteer shoppers purchase these products to make up the difference.

Tuesday morning after the SHPC Fish phone center fills out request sheets from callers, members of the special needs team collect the specific extra products needed by each family, and they add these to that family's order.

SHPC volunteers then arrive deliver groceries on the second Tuesday of each month!

Additional service to SHPC’s hunger ministry:  Once a year Sequoyah Church is responsible for buying food for the West Knox Food Pantry (a cooperative organization of 16 churches) which we use every month for our Fish deliveries.  The tasks involved in stocking the pantry include:  purchase the food from various vendors; deliver 10,000 pounds of food to the pantry; assemble each sack of food and place on shelves; clean the pantry; recycle cardboard; and maintain the pantry for the full month of March.

MINNOWS – A NEW SERVICE OPPORTUNITY! SHPC is now making an additional FISH delivery (called Minnows) on the fourth Saturday of every month. Volunteers meet at the food pantry around noon to distribute the food bags, and then make 4-6 deliveries each (1-2 hour commitment) within the Knox County area.  You can be paired with another volunteer or deliver food as a family.  Please contact Stephanie Benko at 249-7500 or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it to volunteer.  The next delivery date is Saturday, July 23.

KNOX AREA RESCUE MINISTRIES (KARM) – Twice a year, SHPC volunteers cook, set-up, and serve the evening meal to over 250 residential families and the homeless in our community.

                  

 

LIVING WATERS FOR THE WORLD, a mission resource of the Synod of Living Waters of the Presbyterian Church (USA), trains and equips mission teams to share the gift of clean, sustainable water with communities in need.  The SHPC “Living Waters of The World” team (J Corbitt, Michael Ayres, Patricia Long, Wade Lovin, Justin Martin, Carter Schmid and Tommy Schmid) has been hard at work on the installation of the first two water purification systems in a remote area near Tazewell.  To date, two families are able to have clean and safe water!

POND GAP ELEMENTARY SCHOOL– SHPC is in partnership with Pond Gap.  Various mission opportunities are available depending on the needs of the school and the students. Current and past opportunities include:
•    Sponsoring/Tutoring of students
•    Provide food items for Second Harvest’s Backpacks for students
•    Sam Fowler Blitz Day – Working on the grounds of PG
•    Book Drive
•    Bargains & BBQ:  An event to provide bargains to Pond Gap families at low cost, raise money for the principal’s discretionary fund, and as an outreach opportunity for the church.

HABITAT FOR HUMANITY – Every other year, SHPC helps build a local Habitat house.