Tour CompassCare

Community groups and individuals come tour CompassCare. Tours are ~1 hour long Thursday nights at 7pm or Saturday mornings at 9:30am. Email agencyrep.northridge@gmail.com for exact dates.

PB&J Factory

Interested in doing a tour and getting your feet wet at the same time? Consider participating in Open Door Mission's PB&J factory. Groups can purchase/provide peanut butter and jelly, and other food items such as drinks and snacks for brown-bag lunches. The PB&J Factory includes a tour, an orientation and time for Q&A. Your group will then proceed to prepare brown-bag lunches in an assembly line fashion. Group volunteer hours are Thursdays from 10am-12pm. Special events are also available in collaboration with Open Door's Volunteer Coordinator. Email kpena@ODMRocNY.org to participate.

Tour Grace House

Community groups and individuals are invited to schedule a tour of Grace House. Tour times are flexible, with at least one week's notice required. Email agencyrep.northridge@gmail.com to set one up.

Tour the Jail

Community groups and individuals are invited to come and tour the jail to learn more about the Good News Jail and Prison Ministry.

Tours are the 3rd Tuesday of most months starting at 6:45pm. Tours are about 2 hours long.

A background check must be performed prior to the tour. Names and date of births must be submitted to Dave (agencyrep.northridge@gmail.com) no later than a week before the tour to perform the background check. Photo ID is required on the day of the tour.

Start With A Tour

It seems that April showers don't just bring May flowers. Spring helps bring energy and a rejuvenated desire to do something outside. Let's channel some of that energy and focus some of our "doing" on serving those in our city.

Back in the fall we aired a blog series called "Ease In" to help you figure out how to begin serving. We want to take the next couple of weeks to remind you of an easy way to start serving: attend a tour.

As you continue to explore yourself and your interests, consider exploring our partnering agencies too. A tour is a great way to really learn about an organization and allows you the information you need to make a service commitment in the future.

Speaking of a tour...

Community Group Service Model

Are you a part of a community group that is looking to serve in Rochester this year? The following service model can help your group both serve effectively and grow together during the process.

Pick Just One

Instead of doing a handful of one of time service opportunities this year with multiple different agencies, consider adopting just one agency for the year and serve with them multiple times. That will increase your impact immensely. Check out northridgeserves.com for a list of all our partnering agencies.

Start with a Tour

All of our Northridge Serves partners either hold a regularly scheduled tour or would enjoy scheduling one with your group. Start your service year with a tour. It helps your group learn more about the agency and how best you can partner with them for the year. This is a great way to get started serving as a group, especially for those in your group who may be unfamiliar with the agency.

Get Your Feet Wet

Sometimes, after a tour, your group will know exactly how they want to serve. Other times, groups are still uncertain with how they can help the agency serve our city well. In those situations, try a “Get Your Feet Wet” service opportunity such as a monthly mailing, or a maintenance day. This helps your group gauge even better how to further get involved, still provides a needed service, and allows your group to fellowship together during the process.

Take A Dive

After a tour and a “Get Your Feet Wet” service opportunity, consider taking a dive into serving. There are a few ways your group can approach this. As a group you may choose to work together to fill a weekly-monthly need for the agency. Or, you may decide to take on a service project that will require some prep work or that is challenging/stretching for some of your group members. Don’t shy away from the dive! This is actually where your group can grow the most. Jesus served sacrificially and this a chance for your group to do the same.

If you or your community group would like some help approaching serving, please don’t hesitate to talk to our service coordinators Matt and Belinda. They’ll even attend one of your group meetings to help you plan! Email agencyrep.northridge@gmail.com.

Still Not Sure How To Ease Into Serving?

Contact us if you're still not sure how to get involved.  We're here to help!  If there's something specific you would like to do, but don't see it listed as a volunteer need for any of our partnering organizations, let us know.  Many of our organizations would gladly accept non-listed help.

We hope this series has helped you get involved in serving!  Let us know how we can better help others serve too.

agencyrep.northridge@gmail.com

Wet Your Feet with Angel Tree

Another great way to wet your feet in service this Christmas is to adopt a child for Christmas with Angel Tree.  Adopt one or multiple children who's parent is in prison.  Purchase and deliver Christmas gifts to them on behalf of their incarcerated parent.  See www.angeltree.org for more details.

Email agencyrep.northridge@gmail.com by Dec. 1st letting us know how many children you/your family/your community group would like to donate.

(Of course, this will not be the last notice about Angel Tree 2013)

Wet Your Feet with Operation Christmas Child

A great way to wet your feet in service during Christmas time is to help fill a shoe box for Operation Christmas Child (by Samaritan's Purse).  Fill shoe boxes with toys, school supplies, personal items, and other gifts.  These boxes are then distributed all over the world as Christmas gifts, accompanied by Christian literature by Samaritan's Purse.  Collection week is November 18-25th.  See http://www.samaritanspurse.org/what-we-do/operation-christmas-child/ for details.

Wet Your Feet at Youth for Christ

A great way to get your feet wet at YFC is to volunteer at their snack bar.  Saturdays from 9am-3pm, help run the snack bar while youth play their basketball games in YFC's Allstars basketball league. The time commitment is flexible. Come for one Saturday, every weekend or somewhere in between.  It's a great way to serve while seeing how YFC's sports program works.  Shifts are usually 9am-noon and noon-3pm.  Email agencyrep.northridge@gmail.com if you're interested.

Wet Your Feet with the Good News Jail & Prison Ministry

An easy way to get your feet wet serving through Good News Jail & Prison Ministry is to help with Bible cover replacement.  Community groups and families can work together to put pre-made soft covers on donated Bibles.  The time commitment is flexible, making it a good way to ease in.

If you want to get your feet a little more than just wet, try becoming a lesson grader.  Help grade the written Bible lessons that inmates work on.  Lesson graders get together Thursdays from 7-11am, but the time commitment is flexible.

Email agencyrep.northridge@gmail.com if you're interested.

Wet Your Feet at CompassCare

CompassCare has two great ways to get your feet wet in serving: be a Vision Tour attendee or help prepare a monthly mailing.

As a Vision Tour attendee, community groups and individuals learn how CompassCare is actively erasing the need for abortion in the Rochester region while they tour the facilities. Tour attendance is required for most serving opportunities with CompassCare, so this makes it another great reason to start here.  Tours are approximately an hour long on Thursday nights at 7pm or Saturday mornings at 9:30am.  Email agencyrep.northridge@gmail.com for exact dates.

Community groups and families can also work together to fold, envelope and place stamps on the 3500-4000 mailings sent per month.  Most groups can get a mailing done in 3-4 hours.  Not only is this a useful and necessary task for CompassCare to keep functioning, it's also a great place to wet your feet as the time to serve is flexible.  Email agencyrep.northridge@gmail.com to set up a time to help.

Ease in #4 - Get Your Feet Wet

The last step in our "Ease In" blog series is to get your feet wet.  Now's the time to pick an organization and start getting involved.  Remember, we're still easing in, so if you're not able to make a long term commitment, or would like to learn more about an organization first hand before you make a long term decision, don't worry.  We'll be airing some posts highlighting how you can get your feet wet to help.  Stay tuned!

Ease In #3 - Get Some Feedback

Take some time this week to discuss your findings to ease in #1 and #2.  Talk with your family or your community group.  Ask them for some feedback.  Where do they think you can get involved and how?

Interested in talking to a Northridge Agency Rep to get more details about a specific organization?  Send an email to agencyrep.northridge@gmail.com and it will be forwarded to the appropriate rep.

Still feeling overwhelmed and at a loss as to what you can do?  Are you not sure how who you are lines up with what the eight organizations do?  Contact a Northridge Serves Coordinator via this blog or email at agencyrep.northridge@gmail.com.  We're here to help!

Ease In #2 - Explore

Now that you've considered yourself, it's time to do some exploration!  You've heard of the saying "don't reinvent the wheel"?  Well, the same could be said of those who are trying to ease into serving.  Instead of trying to start serving in ways others have not, consider partnering with an organization who has been serving God for some time now.  Not only would it help them in their work, it will also help you learn more about how God may have you serve in the future.  This week take some time to look at the eight organizations on northridgeserves.com.  Read the "About" section for each organization and make note those that interest you.  Go through the eight organizations again, this time looking at the current volunteer needs on the bottom half of each page.  Once again, take note of what interests you.  Compare these notes to each other and what you discovered about yourself last week.  Is anything starting to line up?

Ease In #1 - Start with You

One way to ease into serving is starting with yourself.  God has made you unique for a reason.  Who you are, what drives you, your skills, etc. -all of that can play a role in helping you understand where you can serve and how.  This week take some time to consider the following questions.  As you consider them, don't just think of "Christian" answers.  When asked "What are you passionate about?", some of you may genuinely be passionate about orphans and widows.  That's awesome!  Others of you may be passionate about something like bikes.  That's also awesome!  You'd be surprised how God chooses to use your uniqueness for His glory.  In this ease in phase, don't limit your thinking!  Instead, ask God to help you reveal the areas of yourself that He may want to use as you ease into serving.

• What are you passionate about?
• What do you like to do?
• What are you good at?
• What do you wish you could do/do better?
• Are you a people person?
• Do you prefer to be behind the scenes?
• What do you currently do (vocation (includes stay at home parents!), at Northridge, in the community)?
• What kind of time do you have to work with?  How often would you be able to help?  How long?
• Are there any places you know already that you would like serve at?
• Are there any things you know already that you would like to do as you serve?
• How comfortable are you with sharing the gospel?

If you're hoping to ease in your family or community group into serving, answer these questions with them.  Keep note of your answers.  They'll help you as you continue in this series specifically with Ease In #2 and #3.

"Ease In" -to Getting Involved

Interested in getting involved, but feel a little too overwhelmed?  Not sure how you can help?  Wish there were more ways you can wet your feet in serving like replacing bible covers?  Well, Northridge Serves is here to help.  We'll be starting a blog series called "Ease In" to help you figure out how you can serve.  These posts are for individuals, families and community groups. So stay tuned!