The church is participating in a project to provide gift bags for children in need. Volunteers will fill bags with inexpensive items like coloring books, crayons, and balls. The bags need to be full but nothing expensive is required. Those who want to help can take bags, add their name to the sign-up sheet, and return the filled bags by November 24th.

1. SIDEWALK CHRISTMAS
Several United Methodist churches have been part of a yearly project of providing gift bags
for children in need. This year our church is planning to participate as well.
Tom and I worked with a group from another church here in town a couple of years ago and
very much enjoyed putting the gifts together. At that time, we were all filling tube socks, not
bags, but found that some people filled the socks all the way to the top, while others only
filled them halfway.
The bags seem like a better and easier way to manage putting the gifts together, plus we’re
not so limited in the size of object we give. Several inexpensive items can be found in lots of
stores, including the 99cent stores, where we found all sorts of stuff, from coloring books and
crayons to nerf balls.
We have a couple of bags here, one for boys and one for girls, that we have filled, but what
we have is only some suggestion of types of stuff. Nothing needs to be expensive, but the
bag does need to be full!
On the back table we have several bags, with an attached sheet of paper on each one, which
gives several ideas as to what kind of gifts would be appropriate. All the ideas and
instructions on the sheet were taken from the Conference web site – these are not our
personal criteria.
If you would like to participate in this project, we would appreciate it if you would take one
or more bags, add your name to the sign-up sheet, and bring the filled bags back here to the
church at Sunday’s service on November 24.