E-GIVING
Dear Friends, Our work within our local community and beyond is supported by donations from members and friends. Good Shepherd has several options for those looking to make donations to its ongoing work.
Give by Mail ~ You can make your gifts by check, mailed to PO Box 495, Jericho, VT 05465 and you can now give online.
Give Online ~For your convenience, we now offer 2 ways to safely give online: the trusted Vanco* eGiving tool and donation via PayPal allow you to make your gift online, securely. You can use a credit card or bank account. You can make a one-time gift of any amount you choose or set up a recurring donation.
Thank you so much for your support and generosity!
Make a Gift through Good Shepherd Connections
People Helping People Global
People helping People Global (PHPG)was founded on March 25, 2009 by Alex and Isabelle Gamms Tuck, members of Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, to provide individuals, mostly in North and Central America, with the tools necessary to eliminate the suffering that they and their families are experiencing due to extreme poverty and implement different strategies to assist building communities in the developing world. PHPG believes that through stronger, more economically viable communities, greater global citizens will emerge, and extreme poverty will no longer be a problem that must be addressed. Its work is focused toward supporting community members so they grow towards becoming economically sustainable and are able to better support their families.
Microlending is the largest and most successful program that People Helping People operates. Its unique method of offering interest-free loans is what separates PHPG from most other lending groups. The process is rather simple, and the results have been incredibly positive. It starts by communicating with other nonprofits and community members to determine the areas that could benefit the most from its microlending program. Meetings are then held among residents to get a feel for the community and to educate community members about the microlending process.
After these informational meetings, individuals are invited to submit an initial request for loan, along with a simple business plan. We then conduct interviews to evaluate need, business acumen, and character. If selected, the individuals are organized into groups of five to twenty individuals. Individuals are responsible for their own microloan, but the group/community aspect is very important to the success of the programs. In addition to encouraging community discourse, the group mentality encourages individuals to repay their loans on time and in full, so that other members may have the same opportunity to develop business and build their community.
The loan recipients have between six and eighteen months to repay their loans. Some of our loan recipients repay monthly, while others repay weekly. It is up to the lending group to determine the repayment schedule. As the loans are repaid, more loan groups are created in the same area and the poverty reducing cycle continues.
Microlending is so effective for several reasons. One reason is that individuals realize that these loans are not hand-outs. Our microloan recipients often express great pride as they repay their loans. They talk about how the system makes them feel much better than those that just give them things, such as houses or clothing. The other major reason it's so effective is that the capital stays in the community. Once the first group of recipients repay their loans, their neighbors get the same opportunity to help their families and build the community they live in.
You can help fund a loan today through the following link: http://phpgmicrolending.org/donate
Vermont-Haiti Project
École Vocational Jean Despagne Félix School
Despagne Felix has been a part of Vermont-Haiti Project since 2007. He is the founder of the École Vocational Jean Despagne Félix (EVJDF) Elementary School and the Duchity Vocational Training Center program, both located in Duchity, Haiti. Despagne has spent many years working for international organizations in Haiti. Despagne, his wife Polene and son John Steve Papouto are members of Good Shepherd Lutheran Church.
The Elementary School has:
6 teachers who are paid $160 per month for a total of $1600 each per year
4 teacher helpers paid $100 each per month for a total of $1000 per year.
There are 198 students.
We need support to pay teachers and to provide one meal per day for each student.
$1 (one) for each per day can feed one child and pay for the cookers!
$1 x 198 children = $198 per day, and $3,960 per month
Please make donations to the Vermont-Haiti Project, with specifications for the EVJDF Elementary School at: http://www.vermonthaitiproject.org/donate-now.html
Other Good Shepherd Members of the Vermont-Haiti Project
Thomas Tailer of Essex, Vermont became involved in VHP after taking his first trip with us in April of 2015. With a background in education (Physics and Earth Science at UVM) and having worked in sustainable development most of his life, he is bringing sustainable and innovative construction techniques to Haiti and VHP projects. Tom lives with his wife Beth and their sheep, honeybees and chickens in Essex Vermont.
Tom Tailer has been creating and spearheading several projects collaborating with EVJDF and the University of Vermont. Following Hurricane Matthew the Humane Infrastructure Development System (HIDS) project was launched. Using the HIDS cement panel design, ten domes have now been completed by staff and students of EVJDF. Strategically placed at 5 churches and homes of community leaders, they serve to showcase this structure as a means for evaluation of a continued program. After having many discussions in November, we are happy to report that these structures are highly valued in the community. The domes have a variety of day to day uses and will serve as safe shelter during any future natural disaster. We are currently researching how this program will move forward.
In March 2017 Tom traveled to Duchity with a group of UVM students. Several of them had been researching, designing and constructing a new Biosand filter utilizing the HIDS panels in Vermont. Their first prototype was successfully created on site at EVJDF. Plans are underway to determine the possibility for production at EVJDF which would greatly decrease transport costs, allow many more filters to be installed and provide jobs as well as skills practice for voc. students.
Prior to the March trip, Tom had worked in Vermont with several UVM students in the research and design of a zero water use septic system (KKP) that maximizes nutrient recovery and creates compost. During their trip in March they built the first KKP system at EVJDF. It uses the HIDS panel construction to form a raised bed. Over this bed sits an attractive, well ventilated and moveable outhouse frame. Human waste is covered daily with waste charcoal dust. When at capacity, the outhouse frame is transferred to the next raised bed, and a solar collector is placed over it; heating and dehydrating the waste to a safe level for planting non-root crop vegetables. After approx. one year the new compost will then be transferred to the garden. We are currently planning a winter 2018 trip to continue with monitoring and evaluation. Users at the school have given it high scores!
Beverly Belisle Scholarship Fund
University of Vermont
Beverly Belisle is the director of the Mosaic Center for Students of Color (MCSC) at the University of Vermont, where she works to enable the success of students of color. She is also a member of Good Shepherd Lutheran Church who was recently was honored for her distinguished service to UVM with a scholarship in her name. You can make a generous gift to honor Beverly and change the lives of students through this scholarship. Your gift will help create more financial support and opportunities for students of color at the University of Vermont: You may donate through the following link: https://www.givecampus.com/campaigns/31927/donations/new
Since 1945 Lutheran World Relief has brought aid and resources to others throughout the world with the knowledge that every person we work with is holy, created in the image of God to be joyful and flourish. We realize that we need others as much as they need us. We need their experience, their knowledge, and their vision, and so we commit to walking alongside them in times of hardship rather than trying to lead or dominate.
Donate:https://donate.lwr.org/give/156547/#!/donation/checkout?c_src=website&c_src2=orange-button
The World Council of Churches
The World Council of Churches (WCC), organized in 1948, is a fellowship of churches which confess the Lord Jesus Christ as God and Savior according to the scriptures, and therefore seek to fulfil together their common calling to the glory of the one God, Creator, Christ, and Holy Spirit.
It is a community of churches on the way to visible unity in one faith and one eucharistic fellowship, expressed in worship and in common life in Christ. It seeks to advance toward this unity, as Jesus prayed for his followers, "so that the world may believe." (John 17:21)
The WCC is the broadest and most inclusive among the many organized expressions of the modern ecumenical movement, a movement whose goal is Christian unity.
The WCC brings together churches, denominations and church fellowships in more than 120 countries and territories throughout the world, representing over 580 million Christians and including most of the world's Orthodox, scores of Anglican, Baptist, Lutheran, Methodist and Reformed churches, as well as many United and Independent churches. While the bulk of the WCC's founding churches were European and North American, today most member churches are in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Latin America, the Middle East and the Pacific. There are now 352 member churches.
For its member churches, the WCC is a unique space: one in which they can reflect, speak, act, worship and work together, challenge and support each other, share and debate with each other. As members of this fellowship, WCC member churches:
are called to the goal of visible unity in one faith and one eucharistic fellowship;
promote their common witness in work for mission and evangelism;
engage in Christian service by serving human need, breaking down barriers between people, seeking justice and peace, and upholding the integrity of creation;
foster renewal in unity, worship, mission and service.
You may learn more about and donate to the WCC at: https://www.oikoumene.org/get-involved