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.
Current Volunteer Opportunities
Habitat for Humanity
Decorate a Habitat Playhouse
October 22 | 12:15 p.m. | Front Lawn
We will paint a design on the playhouse, enjoy fellowship and light refreshments, and learn more about Habitat volunteer opportunities beginning in November.
Build Opportunities Resume in November
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.
Click “get involved,” type in group number 1686, then select Charlotte Church Partners Volunteer Team.
Food Pantries
Loaves and Fishes/friendship trays & Westerly Hills Academy
Food contributions stock our Loaves and Fishes pantry, as well as the emergency pantry at Westerly Hills Academy.
The Loaves and Fishes Pantry located on the bottom floor of our Poplar Street building. Teams of volunteers stock the shelves, receive warehouse deliveries, weigh in donations and assist the shoppers. Friendship Trays volunteers deliver prepared meals to homebound clients several days per week from the Griffin Street warehouse. In the fall, our volunteers will be able to drive and drop off prepackaged groceries directly to the doorstep of hungry families living in the 28208 neighborhood through our Home Delivery program.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Heather Herring
Outreach Coordinator
Heather has been a member of First Presbyterian Church since 2004 and spent much of that time volunteering in various ministries before joining church staff in 2017. She strongly believes that access to opportunities is the most important factor in helping individuals live out the potential God created in them. Contact Heather to discuss opportunities to support students and staff at Westerly Hills Academy or our partners at Core Church.
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
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 and Tuesday evening in December, January, February, and March, twelve individuals 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 tutor students weekly through quality partnerships with Augustine Literacy Project, HELPS Fluency Tutoring, and Heart Math Tutoring.
Local Outreach Stories
From Heart to Hammer
FPC Members Dedicated to Housing Impact Twenty-four years; thirty-four Habitat houses; one important mission: to demonstrate the love of Jesus Christ through affordable housing. Amidst the challenges that come with construction, nobody will claim it’s an easy...
Charlotte school, church create ‘flagship model’ of school-community partnership
The partnership between First Presbyterian Church of Charlotte and Westerly Hills Academy is a strong one, one that the school principal describes as a flagship model of a successful school-community relationship. You wouldn’t know it now, but there was a time when...
A Culture of Care
Nov. 2020 marked the 20 year anniversary of our partnership with Westerly Hills Academy. To honor this milestone, we established a food pantry at the school. The project was recently featured in the CMS Foundation yearbook.
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