A few announcements about GIFT and this week's sessions

As you may know, there exists a core team for the GIFT program which is made up of CF staff and interested adults from the Sunday and Tuesday Programs. We meet to plan, evaluate, and vision for our GIFT program. From this committee comes new ideas and better ways of doing things in our program. As facilitators, Sr. Carol Ann and I deeply appreciate the input and the ideas that the committee offer. We would like to invite you to consider serving on this committee. At the present time we have a dedicated and creative small group of adults. It would be good to have 3-6 more people join us. Please consider and pray about this opportunity and join us for our next meeting. Our next meeting will be on January 12th at 7:00 p.m. in the school building. Hope to see you there!

HOUSE OF PEACE
As part of our next GIFT session we will be putting our boxes together for the House of Peace. Please bring all, or some of the food items that are listed on the previous blog entry. We will have the boxes available on that day and we will fill as many as possible to send out to the House of Peace.
We will also be collecting the boxes for Operation Christmas Child at the next GIFT session. There will be a separate table designated for these shoe box gifts.

HOUSE OF PEACE FOOD BOXES

The House of Peace provides food boxes to over 1,000 needy households at Thanksgiving. At our November GIFT session we will be putting these boxes together. Some of you may be bringing all of the items for a box and some tables may have decided at our last session to split the list of items for the Gift box. Below are the items needed in each box:

• 1 box of mashed potatoes
• 1 bag of stuffing
• 4 cans of green beans
• 4 cans of corn
• 2 cans of cranberry sauce
• 1 - 32 oz. can of sweet potatoes or yams
• 1 box of cake mix
• 1 can of frosting
• 2 boxes of pudding or jell-o
• 2 boxes of cornbread mix
• 2 boxes of macaroni and cheese

The House of Peace will add a $20 gift certificate for a turkey and to help pay for refrigerated foods.

OPERATION CHRISTMAS CHILD

Operation Christmas Child is run by Samaritan's Purse. We will be delivering shoeboxes to one of their drop-off sites on November 17th so if you are participating in this service project and forget to bring it to the November GIFT session, be sure to have your box here at St. James no later than the morning of the 17th. Here are some details for packing your shoebox. Some of you already have a shoebox from Samaritan's Purse. If you do not and are using a regular shoebox you can wrap it but the lid and box must be wrapped separately. All boxes are checked before being sent out.

• Use rubberbands around your box to keep the box closed.
• Tape your label to the top of the box that indicates if your gift is for a boy or a girl and check the age of the child your gift is appropriate for. Labels can be found on the pamphlet that was in your October GIFT Packet.
• If you cannot find your pamphlet you can go to www.samaritanspurse.org/ezgive where they have printable boy/girl labels.
• Please include $7 for shipping per shoebox. This can be placed in the envelope which was also a part of the Operation Christmas Child pamphlet and bring this with you to our upcoming session.
• Gift ideas are: school supplies, toys, hygiene items, hard candy, t-shirts, socks, caps, sunglasses, hair clips, toy jewelry, watches, flashlights (with extra batteries). NO war toys, chocolate or food, liquids, medication or breakable items.

HOLLY DAYS

Holly Days is coming up December 4th & 5th. The activities committee wants to encourage you to join them for this event! Santa will be visiting on Sunday and the children can tell him what they want for Christmas and have their picture taken with him! New this year will be a Silent Auction and Christmas Boutique.

The Activities Committee is looking for help through parishioner donations. If you have books, cd's, dvd's or videos that you are willing to donate the collection box will be in the Gathering Area through November 29th. They are also looking for donations for Theme Baskets and nearly new Christmas items for the Christmas Boutique. See the bulletin for more details if you can help with donations but need more specifics. Remember that the bulletins can be found online at http://www.stjames-parish.net/.

FALL CLEAN UP AT ST. JAMES

The Building and Grounds Committee has scheduled their annual Fall Clean-Up Day for this coming Saturday, November 6th. They are looking for volunteers willing to help rake the leaves here at St. James and clean up the yard.

They will begin at 8 a.m. and hopefully finish up before noon. There is no need to call ahead - just show up if you are able. This is an event that the whole family can come out and help with so consider joining them this coming Saturday morning!