The generosity of members of Grace Lutheran Church continues to amaze the Serving Commission and we are most grateful for all the support we have received for our many out-reach programs. The Commission oversees the projects at Grace Lutheran Church that serve the wider community such as the Food Pantry, Holiday Food Baskets, and the Angel Tree.   It serves as a liaison for the Ecumenical Storehouse and for the Boy and Girl Scouts troops located at our church. Monthly sales of coffee, tea, chocolate, fruit and nuts support the Lutheran World Relief Equal Exchange Project.  The Commission encourages church members to support community charities by coordinating collections, printing information, and the selection of Love Offerings.

Serving the needs of the local community continues in 2007.  The Serving Commission would like to thank all members of Grace Lutheran Church for their generous response of financial and volunteer support to the community locally and around the world. Special thanks to those who volunteer their time and energy to be project coordinators.  Without you, none of these projects would be possible.  We look forward to your continued support.

In April, the focus of support was The Hospitality House at Methodist Medical Center. The Hospitality House's mission is to relieve patients and their families of the financial burden associated with lodging, enabling them to concentrate on the physical and emotional healing. The Hospitality House has served more that 1900 guests. It is totally supported by charitable contributions. The congregation donated numerous supplies including snack size cereal, snack foods, Styrofoam cups, tea bags, disposable razors, light bulbs, dish towels, toothbrushes, hand soap, trash bags and bath cleaner and laundry detergent.

To meet our goal of serving those in need throughout the year, not just at the Holidays, the Serving Commission held it's seventh annual  "Christmas in July" program to benefit the YWCA's Domestic Violence Shelters. The YWCA now operates two shelters and offers many programs to help their clients such as counseling and classes on parenting, financial management, job readiness, conflict resolution, sexual responsibility, survival skills for women, GED tutoring and computer skills. In addition to money collected in a Love Offering, the congregation donated items for the YWCA's birthday closet (where Mothers living in a shelter can choose a gift for a child celebrating a birthday), supplies for use in the shelters, and supplies to help the women establish households of their own after leaving the shelter. Grace members donated toys, books, shampoo, toothbrushes and toothpaste mops, brooms, dishtowels pillows, wastebaskets, laundry supplies, cleaning supplies, blankets, sheets, towels paper products and more.

Grace Lutheran Church participates in several Lutheran World Relief projects. They include the sale of fairly traded, organically grown, coffee, tea, and cocoa from Equal Exchange, as well as chocolate bars from SERRV International. All the sales benefit the farmers working in small cooperatives to support their families at a fair wage and make it possible for the cooperatives to give back to their communities by building schools and medical facilities. . This year Grace bought and sold coffee from Ethiopia, Tanzania, Indonesia, Columbia and Sumatra, as well as tea from India, Sri Lanka and an organically grown, naturally decaffeinated, red tea, Rooibos, from South Africa. The chocolate bars are made from cocoa grown in Ghana, which produces 90% of the world’s cocoa. We also sold cocoa from the Dominican Republic to help them continue to recover from the hurricanes of 2004. New to Grace this year was Equal Exchange’s new Domestic Fair Trade project, featuring roasted salted pecans from Georgia, organic tamari roasted almonds from California, and organic dried sweetened cranberries from Wisconsin. This year we sold $1759.00 worth of coffee, tea, cocoa, chocolate bars, cranberries, and nuts. Grace earns only enough profit to pay shipping costs. In addition, we donated our July sales of $140.75 to Lutheran World Hunger. We appreciate the support of the congregation in purchasing these products.

In 2007 the Ecumenical Storehouse continued to serve the community by providing household goods to families in need. Requests for furniture, linens, bedding, towels, small electronics and kitchen items are always the top priorities. Approximately 1,350 clients were served in 2007. This number continues to grow each year with the largest percentage (88.1%) coming from Anderson County. The end of the year brought good news for all of us. We were able to move to a new location at 134 East Division Road with double the space and level parking for volunteers and clients alike. This move was made possible by the pledges we received from you. We continued to offer the opportunity for three year pledges of $100 each year. We thank the congregation for their support during the last 23 years.

In August, we supported ADFAC by collecting school supplies for needy children in Anderson County. The response of the congregation at Grace was tremendous

Again this year at Christmas the Congregation at Grace church supported the Angel Tree program. In addition, we have the new Stars program which supports elderly persons who may not have celebrated Christmas without our help. 61 children and 8 elderly persons were provided with personal items, clothing and toys.  Angel Tree recipients were referred from the YWCA and Ridgeview. Barbara Storaasli coordinated the list of names and gift requests. Ingrid Busch is the coordinator for the Angel Tree program.

Membership for BSA Troop 224 grew this year with several new scouts joining in the spring. This is the fourth year in a row that has seen membership growth. Currently, the roster has 46 registered scouts and 17 adult leaders.

BSA Troop 224 remained focused on high adventure activities based primarily around backpacking and climbing.  Each month, the troop plans and undertakes an overnight trip to various local wilderness areas. The troop undertakes a high adventure out-of-state expedition trip every other year. 2007 was the troop’s off-year and according was planned around a backpacking wilderness competition at the Big South Fork National Park. The troop is planning an expedition to the Boundary Waters in Northern Minnesota for this coming year.

Two of the senior scouts earned the rank of Eagle this year. Taylor Bonar and Steven Arcangeli earned the highest rank in Boy Scouting. Steven also held the distinction of being one of the three young men from Oak Ridge High School that won the National Siemens Science Competition.

The troop participated in various service projects in the community. The troop helped with the annual fall and spring church clean-up and had another very successful “Scouting for Food” event with all donations going the church’s food pantry.

The Food Pantry at Grace Lutheran Church is one of several pantries that serve the general Oak Ridge area. Families are asked to come at most once a month and are required not to have visited another food pantry in the week they come to us. The Food Pantry supplies food according to a basic menu, which is supplemented by other foods obtained from the Second Harvest Food Bank. The basic menu would cost about $15, if purchased at a local food store. The pantry purchases food at local stores and at the Second Harvest Food bank. The pantry pays 14 cents a pound for the food obtained at Second Harvest. Second Harvest is also the agent for USDA food distribution in the Knoxville area. This food is furnished free to food pantries.

After a fourteen percent increase in use last year, the Pantry saw a seven percent decrease in use in 2007, to an average of 180 families a month. A summary of the usage for 2006 and 2007 is given in the following table.

FOOD PANTRY SUMMARY BY MONTH – 2006 AND 2007

MONTH	FAMILIES SERVED IN 2006	FAMILIES SERVED IN 2007	INDIVIDUALS SERVED IN 2006	INDIVIDUALS SERVED IN 2007
JANUARY	187	188	505	466
FEBRUARY	151	125	368	344
MARCH	214	162	586	460
APRIL	175	169	493	468
MAY	171	173	418	492
JUNE	204	209	542	509
JULY	223	186	589	568
AUGUST	184	178	494	469
SEPTEMBER	236	205	630	511
OCTOBER	207	192	533	523
NOVEMBER	186	211	474	543
DECEMBER	195	156	508	409
TOTAL	2333	2154	6140	5296
AVERAGE	194	180	512	441

Food was distributed at a cost of $14528 or $1211 per month. This represents a decrease of eight percent from 2006. Contributions of $22065 were received. These donations were received from Grace members through the love offering held on the second Sunday of each on month, from other churches, such as Kern Memorial Methodist Church and $1075 FEMA’s Emergency Food and Shelter Program. No money was designated in Grace’s budget for the Food Pantry. A community food drive by the Boy Scouts greatly contributed to the food supplies of the pantry.

A group of volunteers from Grace and Kern Methodist distribute food every Friday from 10 AM until Noon.  A set of volunteers comes from Kern to serve the fifth Friday, which occurs once a quarter. Linda Dreke, Bill Lever and Judy Joy are coordinators, with Helen Kapral acting as treasurer.  Weekly trips are made to Second Harvest to get food and Bill purchases other food from local stores.  Paul Becher, Rich Kerchner, and Tim Reeves helped to unload the trucks from Second Harvest and restock the shelves. Pickup trucks are provided by Bill Lever, Judy Joy, Chuck Thompson and Joan Johnson for the trips to Second Harvest. Linda and Judy do the heavy lifting, Bill does the paper work, and Helen sees that the bills are paid.

Holiday Food Baskets, at a cost of $8000, were distributed to families nominated by the YWCA Women’s Shelter, Ridgeview, DHS, and congregation members. Twenty-four baskets were distributed at Easter at a cost of about $60 each. During both Thanksgiving and Christmas thirty-six families received baskets at a cost of about $100. Most of the foods items were purchased at local stores, but some items were purchased at Second Harvest at 14 cents a pound. The youth of Grace and others helped to pack the baskets. Adult volunteers helped to distribute the baskets to recipients.  The baskets were funded by church member donations and from Thrivent Financial matching contributions. The coordinators for the Holiday Food Baskets in 2007 were Barbara Storaasli, Janie Hiserote, Phil Stumbo, and Bill Lever. Helen Kapral kept track of the finances.

We rejoice in the outpouring of love by Grace Lutheran Church members. May we all continue to give of our time, talent and resources to show love to others and thus reflect the love that God has given us.

Submitted by Gloria Caton with help from many others.