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Our Service to the Community and Others         

First Presbyterian Church is a founding and supporting member of Hands on Hartford, formerly Center City Churches, Inc. The Church supports this urban ministry with generous budgeted gifts, Groups of  youth and adults volunteer to serve meals at MANNA Community Meals, MANNA Senior Cafe and to work at Peter's Retreat.  Individual members also serve on the board and volunteer in its programs.

Hands on Hartford, formerly Center City Churches, in partnership with others, strengthens community in Hartford by responding faithfully to people in need through programs that change lives and renew human possibility. 

The following programs are operated by Hands on Hartford:

Hands On Congregations and Community Engagement is the newest program of Center City Churches, the agency being named an affiliate of the Hands On Network in the Fall of 2006.

Center for Youth is an after-school tutoring and cultural enrichment program for children at Dr. Ramón E. Betances and María Sánchez Elementary Schools in Hartford. A Family Resource Center at each site provides support to families and children who reside in the Sheldon/Charter Oak and Frog Hollow neighborhoods.

MANNA Assistance and Advocacy is a family intervention program that operates a food pantry, fuel bank, and provides advocacy through landlord-tenant mediation, referrals, budget management and other services to assist Hartford's low-income families.

MANNA Community Meals is a soup kitchen providing daily breakfast and lunch and dinners two nights a week as well as limited case management services to Hartford's homeless and low-income working people.

MANNA Senior Community Cafe is a weekend nutrition and social program for Hartford's elderly population. The program also furnishes meal delivery to homebound senior citizens.

Peter's Retreat is a shared residence, scattered-site housing and support program for individuals living with an HIV/AIDS diagnosis who would otherwise be homeless.  

Go to Hands On Hartford's web site.

First Presbyterian Church's annual Strawberry Festival held in June supports the following ministries:

2008 FPC Youth Mission Trip $500

2008 FPC Adult Mission Trip $750

West Indian Foundation (hurricane relief) $500

Monroe Scholarship (A FPC Program) $1000

Weekend Backpack Program $250
            (A Hands on Hartford Program)

Presbyterian Disaster Assistance $250

Camp Coast Care (Adult Mission Trip site) $250

The Deacons of First Presbyterian Church receive an offering for Mission each First Sunday of the Month which supports still other mission projects.

Mission Trips

For the past seven years the youth of the Church have spent a week each summer on a mission trip.  Last Summer they went to San Antonio, Texas and worked with a variety of social service agencies serving the poor and handicapped, in 2006 they traveled to the Mississippi Gulf Coast doing Hurricane Relief following Katrina, one year they worked in Caguas, Puerto Rico.

Challenged by the youth the first adult (actually intergenerational) Mission Trip was held in February 2007 working with the same agency the youth had worked with the previous summer.  A second intergenerational mission trip will travel to Mississippi in February 2008. 

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