Local Outreach
Our local and global ministries strive to make an impact for the greater good by connecting people’s gifts and passions with the needs of the world. We are grateful to be able to work with wonderful partners to address issues of hunger, housing, poverty and education.
Learn more about how you can share your gifts through one of our ministries below.
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Sent on the second Friday of the month. This newsletter focuses on the outreach and advocacy work of First Presbyterian.
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Current Volunteer Opportunities
Second Saturday for Service
AT Crisis Assistance Ministry
Team up with fellow church members as we support the good work of our partners at Crisis Assistance Ministry by working in their community FreeStore. CAM works to walk alongside our community’s most vulnerable population to prevent homelessness. We will work for a few hours and then have a fun lunch together. This service opportunity is perfect for ages 10 and up.
Room in the Inn
FPC is one of the founding churches that helped organize this program with Urban Ministry to provide overnight lodging for unsheltered neighbors during the winter months. Every Monday evening in December, January, February, and March, twelve guests are picked up at the College Street campus of Roof Above and driven to the church where they are served dinner and given beds for the night. In the morning, the guests eat breakfast and are given a brown bag lunch.
Tutoring
Volunteers are needed to tutor students weekly through quality partnerships with Augustine Literacy Project, Helping Education, and Heart Math Tutoring. Volunteer tutors are paired with elementary students at Westerly Hills Academy and across Charlotte and are supported with training and curriculum resources. Tutoring for the 2024/25 school year begins in October and will wrap up in May. Please sign up using the links below.
Roof Above
Serve Lunch
Every second Sunday of the month, we send volunteers to the Roof Above Day Center kitchen to make homemade soup and hand out bag lunches to our unsheltered neighbors who visit the College Street campus. Our “Soup Kitchen” ministry operates year round.
Operation Sandwich
SUPPORTING ROOF ABOVE
Once a month, up to 600 sandwiches are assembled by teams of volunteers – young and old, on our church campus and then dropped off to the College Street Day Center. Sunday school classes, young adults, PW circles, youth group, new members are all invited to help feed our unsheltered neighbors all year round.
Habitat for Humanity
Beginning September 7
FPC and Charlotte Church Partners volunteers work on a yearly “build” in the fall, with members providing labor, snacks, and family support for the homeowner working towards a new home.
Food Pantries
SUPPORTING Nourish Up
The Nourish Up is located on the bottom floor of our Poplar Street building. Teams of volunteers stock the shelves, receive warehouse deliveries and assist referred clients in shopping for groceries on Wednesday and Friday afternoons, and the second and third Saturday morning of each month. A new feature is the Home Delivery program which gives volunteers the opportunity to drop off pre-packaged boxes of food directly to the doorstep of food insecure families in the 28208 neighborhood surrounding our church.
Meet the Outreach Leadership Team
Rev. Lucy Crain
Associate Pastor for Outreach & Mission
God created all people to live in community with one another and gifted us with an innate desire to give of ourselves for the greater good. Lucy finds joy in helping people find impactful ways to live into their calling as children of God. Lucy is excited to learn and grow in faith with members of FPC through outreach ministry.
Flo Bryan
Outreach Coordinator
Flo joined First Presbyterian Church in 1991 and has raised a family in the church, taught in the Weekday School and joined the staff as an outreach coordinator right before the pandemic. Working alongside church volunteers in support of our partner organizations has strengthened her belief that Christ calls us to be equal partners with our neighbors in need of grace, hope and justice.
Upcoming Volunteer Opportunities
Westerly Hills Academy
Pantry + School store
First Presbyterian has had a partnership with Westerly Hills Academy, an under-resourced school in the 28208 zip code, since 2000. We provide support for events, including the Second Harvest Mobile Food Pantry and the Eagle Bucks School Store (a behavior and attendance incentive), with both volunteers and donations.
Local Outreach Stories
Have a story idea? Send it to cchristian@firstpres-charlotte.org.
A Figurative Fairy Godmother
Volunteers Nurture Campers and Future Leaders In the rolling hills of North Carolina, nestled amidst towering trees and babbling brooks, lies Camp Grier. Founded over half a century ago as an outdoor ministry of the Presbyterian Church, the camp has served as a...
Beyond the Pantry Shelves
FPC Members Respond to food insecurity Located on the lower level of First Presbyterian’s Poplar Street building, a ministry dedicated to feeding hungry neighbors in our community has operated for 39 years. The Loaves and Fishes Pantry at FPC is run almost exclusively...
Lack of Affordable Housing is Uprooting Teachers and Families at Westerly Hills
In March of 2023, the Session created an Affordable Housing Strategy Team with the goal of bringing a recommendation to help our church address one of our city’s most pressing needs—the lack of affordable housing in our city. Housing cost increases have outpaced...
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