A huge thank you to everyone who brought a shoebox to St Catherine’s for our Shoebox Sunday service.
We took over 40 shoeboxes to the collection depot on Monday morning. Along with the on-line donations, they’ll be sending Good News and Great Joy to less fortunate children around the world.
Please join us at 4pm on Sunday 5th December for our ever popular Christingle Service. As well as making Christingles, we’ll be raising money for the Children’s Society.
If you wish to make an on-line donation, please go to
https://www.childrenssociety.org.uk/how-you-can-help/donate#make-a-donation .
Operation Christmas child is a way of bringing some Christmas cheer to a poor, needy or suffering child.
The idea is to fill a shoebox with small gifts, (please read the leaflet carefully about what is acceptable) and add a donation of £5 or more towards transport costs.
A simple shoebox gift packed with love and fuelled by prayer can have a huge impact!
If you have trouble getting a shoebox, we have a supply of flat pack boxes already decorated for 50pence each.
We are an official collecting point for filled Shoeboxes.
Alternatively, you can ‘pack’ a Shoebox online at: https://shoeboxonline.samaritans-purse.org.uk/
Click here to see the fantastic shoeboxes we collected two years ago.
We are also holding a special service to gather the filled Shoeboxes, when you can hear more about what happens to the filled boxes.
Date – Sunday 21st November
Time – 10.00 am with refreshments after the service.
Place – St Catherine’s Church, Wittenham Avenue, RG31 5LN.
Alternatively you can bring Shoeboxes to St Catherine’s Church or Cornwell 0-5 Play Group anytime before 21st November.
This year’s Harvest Service will be held on 26th September at 10am.
We will be supporting the charity Send-a-Cow who provide tools and education for farming in Africa.
Financial gifts to ‘Send A Cow’ can be made online by going to https://sendacow.org/donate-now/give-a-donation/ and putting in our church reference AM5101 at the bottom in the ‘let us know why….’ box. OR just put cash in the special collection plate.
We’re also collecting tinned/packet goods, for Readifood.
Refreshments will be served in the hall at end of the service. Followed by ‘Spud lunch’ at 12.30pm with choice of fillings – chilli, cheese, beans or tuna, and salad.
Many of you will have seen Rev Gill’s email about helping Afghan refugees in this area. We are very grateful for the response that many of you have already made.
As various agencies work together, we ask that all your offers of help or donations go through West Berkshire (click below for more details) or chat to Gill first.
https://info.westberks.gov.uk/afghanaid
If you didn’t manage to join us on-line for our Christian Aid week ‘At Home’ Sunday Service on 9th May, you can watch it below …
If you wish to make a donation to Christian Aid, please click here
Christian Aid week runs from 10th to 16th May.
To start things off, please come along to our special Christian Aid Week service in Church, or look our for our ‘At Home’ service video, which will appear first on our Facebook page. Both start at 10am Sunday 9th May.
The link to make a donation to Christian Aid is here :- https://giving.tapsimple.org/online/christian-aid/
st-catherine-s-donations-to-caw21 .
We are not able to hold our usual Leprosy Mission Sunday in Church this year. This means we will not be able to hand out our usual donation ‘giving envelopes’ for The Leprosy Mission.
Please remember the work of The Leprosy Mission in your prayers. If would like to make a donation please use the following link:
https://leprosymission.netdonor.net/page/73514/donate/1?ea.tracking.id=p3638wxrr
Donations made between 24th January and 24th April will be doubled by the UK Government thanks to the UK Aid scheme.
Find out more about the work of The Leprosy Mission by visiting their website at https://www.leprosymission.org.uk/
Our Christingle service will be on Sunday 6th December from 10.00am on our Facebook page.
Every year as part of this service we raise money for the Children’s Society. If you want to donate through our online fundraising page you can do so by following this link https://thyg.uk/CUS047311
Each year we support the charity Samaritans Purse and their project Operation Christmas Child, which sends a shoebox of presents to children who otherwise may receive nothing at Christmas.
However this year, because of the obvious logistical problems that the Coronavirus Pandemic cause, we’re doing things a little differently.
This year we are encouraging everyone to buy a Shoebox for Operation Christmas Child online at: https://shoeboxonline.samaritans-purse.org.uk/ (or just search for “Shoebox Appeal”). By going on-line it means people do not need to make additional shopping trips to obtain gifts and boxes.
However we are aware that many still like to create a physical box for themselves. If you did want to pack an actual Shoebox, you can take it to the ‘Entertainer’ toyshop in Reading Broad Street or to ‘Kingsmen’ in Marcus Close (off Dee Road) which is where we took them last year.
The national collection week is 9th – 16th November.
St Catherine's 