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Summer ’24 Mission Projects

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Hunger Offering

June 30, July 28, August 25, during 10:00 am Worship

This offering supports the following mission partners: HomeFront, Presbyterian Hunger Program, Send Hunger Packing Princetons, Trenton Area Soup Kitchen, and Uniting Reformed Church in Stellenbosch, South Africa. Thank you for giving until all are fed. Use the “Hunger” fund when you give online (“Give Now”) or in the memo line of your check.

Give Now

School Supplies Drive

July 7 – August 11

Providing supplies for success. We are once again joining with Westminster Presbyterian Church (WPC), our partner church in Trenton, to provide backpacks filled with school essentials for local students. Our goals are 150 backpacks and $5,000 for the supplies to fill them. Bring backpacks to the Narthex on Sunday mornings; use the “School Supplies” fund when you give online (“Give Now”) or in the memo line of your check.

Give Now

Loaves & Fishes

Friday, August 23 & Saturday, August 24

Join us for our 32nd year of service. Volunteering for Loaves and Fishes, whether it’s donating food, money, or time, is an opportunity to be fed and to join our community of faith in action. Use the “Loaves & Fishes” fund when you give online (“Give Now”) or in the memo line of your check. Use the Sign Up button below to donate food or time.

Sign Up

PTS Coat Drive

August 18 – September 15

Restock the PTS Coat Closet. To help prepare international students at the Seminary for the New Jersey winters, donate gently worn men’s and women’s winter coats, fleece pullovers and winter accessories. This year we are also looking for donations of new socks for both men and women. Bring items to the Assembly Room on Sunday mornings; contact the church office to drop off during the week.

Moment for Mission: HomeWorks Trenton

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HomeWorks Trenton is a free, community-based, after-school residential program designed to provide a supportive and safe space where high school girls learn to self-advocate, become leaders, and achieve academic success.

Four aspects define our program:

  1. Residential Boarding: From Sunday evenings to Friday mornings, our scholars live in our dorm with three staff and spend weekends with their families. Residential boarding creates a structured, stable environment for scholars to focus on academics and personal growth. It provides an immersive community experience for scholars to collectively grow in ways traditional, non-residential programs do not allow.
  2. Core Curriculum (Academics  & Identity-Driven Leadership): Our academics programming focuses on daily tutoring, skill development, and college preparation. Additionally, scholars engage in Black and Brown girl-centered workshops, social justice discussions and readings, and a public service capstone and internship. This curriculum equips scholars with the tools and confidence to become leaders that ultimately creates systemic change in their communities.
  3. Career Readiness: Third and fourth year internships and electives allow scholars to explore their academic and career interests, making an impact in the community while gaining valuable work experience.
  4. Wellness, Field Trips, and Travel: Group Therapy offer spaces for scholars to develop mindful habits and practice self-love. HomeWorks also sponsors group travel to local organizations (like local theater productions) and cities such as New York and Washington D.C. to further supplement their public education and offer experiential learning opportunities outside of the classroom.

HomeWorks offers the support girls need to graduate from high school, attend college, feel confident in their discovery and evolution of self, become effective leaders, and create change. Our mission is to inspire and equip young women from marginalized communities to achieve their potential and positively transform the world around them by providing a supportive and educational residential environment.

Special Presentation on Famed “Red Tail” Tuskegee Airmen

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Wednesday May 15, 7:30-9:00 pm, on Zoom

On behalf of Bending the Moral Arc Courageous Conversations (BMA CC), Witherspoon Street Presbyterian Church’s Christian Education Committee, and Nassau Presbyterian Church, we are thrilled to invite you to our virtual meeting on May 15th at 7:30 pm honoring the legendary Tuskegee Airmen. This BMA CC meeting will feature Princeton graduate, Gordon Smith. Gordon will tell the inspirational story of how his father, Captain Luther H. Smith of the fabled “Tuskegee Airmen,” fought racism in our country’s armed forces, and served heroically as one of the “Red Tail” fighter pilots in the skies above Germany in World War II. We hope to see you there!!

Join Zoom Meeting (Link)

Meeting ID: 860 0554 4490
Passcode: 046905

 

2024 VIP Water Walk

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Save Lives in Malawi

Help save lives in the impoverished villages of Malawi!

This spring, the stakes are perilously high: Disastrous droughts in southern Africa have triggered a hunger crisis for millions in Malawi, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. In Villages in Partnership’s 29 partner villages, the drought has caused failed crops and widespread hunger.

In response, VIP has dedicated their 2024 Water Walk fund-raiser on Saturday, May 4, to bringing clean water to the villages, not just for drinking, but to irrigate farmers’ fields to replant and replace the crops lost to drought.

VIP Water Walk 2024

How You Can Help:

  • Walk with Us! Join the Nassau Church Water Walkers who walk to raise funds to bring clean water to Malawi, both during the VIP Water Walk on May 4 in Allentown, NJ, and in the weeks leading up to the Water Walk in their own neighborhoods. For information, contact Liz Beasley (email) or Larry Alphs (email).
  • Support Us! Donate what you can to the cause. Just click one of the Nassau Church Water Walkers Team member’s fund-raising links below to make your gift:

Liz Beasley
Larry Alphs
Loretta Wells

Marshall McKnight
Sarah Ringer

Thank you for your concern for our Malawi brothers and sisters.

 

Churches for Middle East Peace, Lunch & Learn, Sunday, April 14

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Churches for Middle East Peace (CMEP), a mission partner of Nassau Church for many years, will be returning for post-worship conversation regarding the ongoing crisis and suffering in Israel/Palestine. CMEP has consistently been calling for a permanent bilateral ceasefire, the allowance of humanitarian aid into Gaza, and for the release of all hostages.

Speakers include members of CMEP staff and peace-builders from the Middle East. Understanding the geopolitics, social considerations, and other aspects of the conflict demands that we look beyond the headlines into the daily realities of people living on the ground. Churches for Middle East Peace is pro-Israeli, pro-Palestinian, pro-peace, and pro-justice.

Join us to learn what it means to be someone who pursues peace, while also advocating for justice in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and beyond. Please make your reservations by Wednesday, April 10 using the online form, or by contacting Lauren Yeh (email) in the church office.


RSVP (link)

Rev. Dr. Mae Elise Cannon, Executive Director
Cannon received her first doctorate in American History with a minor in Middle Eastern studies at the University of California (Davis) focusing on the history of the American Protestant church in Israel and Palestine and her second doctorate in Ministry in Spiritual Formation from Northern Theological Seminary. She is the author of several books including the award-winning Social Justice Handbook: Small Steps for a Better World and editor of A Land Full of God: Christian Perspectives on the Holy Land.

Tamar Haddad, And Still We Rise Coordinator
A full-time And Still We Rise Coordinator based in Jerusalem, Haddad was hugely impacted by her involvement in leadership programs like MEPI – Student Leaders Program, International Women Leaders, and the Clinton Global Initiative University. While she previously served as the Project Manager for Gender Justice at the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land (ELCJHL), Haddad currently serves at the UN Commission on the Status of Women and volunteers as a Regional Coordinator at the Lutheran World Federation (LWF).

Destiny Magnett, Programs and Outreach Manager
Magnett joined CMEP following an eight-week Middle East Fellowship where she helped to bolster and expand CMEP’s relationships on the ground in Israel/Palestine. Prior to joining CMEP, Destiny worked in the U.S. Department of State, USAID, Search for Common Ground– Jordan, and Harvard’s Office of Religion and Public Life. Destiny is also an MTS candidate at Harvard Divinity School and holds a B.A. in Religious Studies from Grinnell College.

Please make your reservations by Wednesday, April 10 using the online form, or by contacting Lauren Yeh (email) in the church office.


RSVP (link)

Witherspoon & Nassau Churches featured in “The Presbyterian Outlook”

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Building trust ‘for the sake of the Gospel’

Nassau Presbyterian Church and Witherspoon Street Presbyterian Church work to build trust that has been missing since 1840.

BY JOHN A. BOLT
PUBLISHED: MARCH 26, 2024
Read more: Building trust ‘for the sake of the Gospel’ – The Presbyterian Outlook (pres-outlook.org)

Watch the documentary:

Three Authors Will Speak on Critical Issues of Social Justice

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Three social entrepreneurs and authors will appear together in the Princeton area and share uplifting stories and lessons learned in their journey to justice.

The “Three-Authors” events will be held Friday, April 26 from 2-4 p.m. at the Mercer County Library Lawrence Headquarters, 2751 Brunswick Pike, Lawrence Township, NJ, and again on Friday, April 26 from 6:30-8:30 p.m. at the Nassau Presbyterian Church Assembly Room, 61 Nassau Street, Princeton, NJ.  Both events are free and open to the public.

Local author and activist Sam Daley-Harris will discuss the 2024 edition of his book, Reclaiming Our Democracy: Every Citizen’s Guide to Transformational Advocacy, released January 9, 2024. His recent interviews on NPR’s Here and Now and 1A outline why the ideas in the book are an antidote to the despair many people will feel during the elections and beyond. Publisher’s Weekly BookLife called his book a “rousing guide to advocacy, movement-building, and enacting change in cynical times,” and named it and Editor’s Pick.

Another of the authors is Alex Counts, who started and ran Grameen Foundation (GF) for its first 18 years. GF is an international poverty alleviation organization working to advance the approaches pioneered in Bangladesh by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Dr. Muhammad Yunus. His three books include Changing the World Without Losing Your Mind (Revised Edition)  which Forbes magazine called one of twelve “must-read books for nonprofit leaders” and was the Chronicle of Philanthropy’s “Editor’s Pick” from its best nonprofit books of 2019.

The third author is Debbie Frisch, who, in 2017, opened HelloBaby, the nation’s first free-standing, free-of-charge, drop-in play space for babies, toddlers, and their caregivers located in the struggling Woodlawn neighborhood of Chicago. Her book, Hello Baby: Building an Oasis in a Play Desert, tells the story of her life journey and her roadmap to spurring community development in urban play deserts. Publisher’s Weekly BookLife said: “Frisch addresses with insight and sensitivity the dynamics of a white woman working with [communities of color in this] valuable resource.”

After the discussion the authors will sign copies of their book.

#MissionMonday – Housing Initiatives of Princeton (HIP)

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Do you have furniture to donate?

Consider donating to the Raritan Valley Habitat for Humanity ReStore in Manville. They have a partnership with Housing Initiatives of Princeton (HIP), one of Nassau’s Mission Partners. HIP received an exceptional grant from Nassau’s Mission & Outreach Committee in January for their transitional housing move-in/move-out days. Often a family is in need of furniture as well as a home. HIP’s partnership with the ReStore helps families furnish their new apartments.

Let the ReStore know you heard about them through HIP, and schedule a pick-up or drop-off at https://rvhabitatrestore.org/donate-to-the-restore/.

#MissionMonday – Refugee Resettlement Update (Feb. 2024)

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The Nassau Church Refugee Coordinating Team has provided this update on the Hashimi family, the Afghan refugee family that Nassau Church has sponsored.

This past summer, the Coordinating Team reported the good news that the family’s asylum applications had been approved. This gave the family the legal right to live and work in the United States and to apply for permanent residency and eventually citizenship.

More recently, the father of the family who is stranded in Dubai has received preliminary approval for his spousal asylum application and an invitation to submit his information for a visa. That could still take a long time to resolve, but the Coordinating Team is hopeful that things are moving in a positive direction.

There is other good news. The second oldest daughter has passed her GED and is enrolled at Mercer County Community College. Her mother and older sister are also enrolled there.

The oldest son is still working at Princeton Orthopedics, and his brother is in the process of enrolling in a commercial pilot training program which will prepare him for a promising career.

We are grateful that they and all the members of the family have been such cheerful and enthusiastic partners in our work together.

We want to recognize the ongoing commitment of the Refugee Coordinating Team, who are walking alongside the Hashimi’s as they continue to navigate immigration, education, and medical systems.  Our thanks to them and the other volunteers who have given of their time and resources as part of Nassau’s commitment to support refugees.

Health for Haiti Christmas Tree

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December 3 – January 7, Assembly Room, hosted by Presbyterian Women in the PC(USA)

Decorate our Christmas Tree with items needed for the Haiti clinic: muscle rub, antibiotic cream, gauze, tape, Band-Aids, ACE bandages, thermometers, wooden tongue depressors, non-latex gloves, hand lotion, small cakes of soap, packaged toothbrushes, small children’s toys (matchbox cars, jump ropes, etc.), barrettes, and hair ribbons.

Read more online: Friends for Health in Haiti

Contact: Lauren McFeaters (email)