As we continue to pray for peace in Ukraine, we know there is so much being shared about how to help during this crisis. The sheer volume of information can be overwhelming, even for those who want to help.
Our justice deacons have this list of ways to respond below, including prayer guides, vetted options for providing financial support, and opportunities to donate goods this weekend. Each act of love, faith, and obedience to God’s voice and the way of Jesus is significant. Let us resolve to be the church, the hands and feet of Jesus, in our time.
Donations of Goods
[ Updated as of March 5, 2022 ]
Camp Friendship
339 8th Street, Brooklyn, NY 11215
Collecting:
Saturday, March 5 (11am–4pm)
Items Needed:
baby food, dry formula, diapers, baby wipes, period products, sleeping bags, sleeping mats, clean children’s clothing organized by size, head lamps, flashlights, batteries, first aid supplies including children’s ibuprofen.
Old Stone House
336 3rd St, Brooklyn, NY 11215
Collecting:
Sunday—Monday, March 6–7 (11am–4pm)
Items Needed:
baby food, dry formula, diapers, baby wipes, period products, sleeping bags, sleeping mats, clean children’s clothing organized by size, head lamps, flashlights, batteries, first aid supplies including children’s ibuprofen.
Hootenanny
426-428 15th Street, Brooklyn, NY 11218
Collecting:
Friday—Sunday, March 4–6 (during class times)
Items Needed:
first aid medicine (especially children’s ibuprofen/tylenol), batteries, flashlights, and headlamps.
Poetica Coffee Shops
Prospect Park/Windsor Terrace (240 7th Ave/240 PPW)
Downtown BK/ (529 Atlantic Ave/251 Smith St)
Williamsburg (561 Lorimer St)
Collecting:
Friday—Monday, March 4–7 (during business hours)
Items Needed:
May still be accepting donations; it may be wise to call. First aid medicine (especially children’s ibuprofen/tylenol), batteries, flashlights, and headlamps.
Monetary Donations
World Central Kitchen: currently providing meals to Ukrainian refugees at Poland’s border.
Care: aims to reach four million people with emergency assistance – particularly families, women and girls, and the elderly who are likely to suffer the most by this crisis.
Voices of Children: A Ukraine-based non-profit helping children navigate mental health issues caused by war.
International Rescue Committee: send vital supplies to displaced children and families.
Prayer and Fasting
Scripture tells us that God hears his people’s cries of oppression and will respond, and that we add strength to our prayers through fasting. The Lenten season marks the time leading up to Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection. Historically the Church marks this time with fasting — a removal of things from our lives in order to seek God and His kingdom. In Isaiah 58, we are reminded that fasting is not just about abstaining but about doing.
“Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter— when you see the naked, to clothe them, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?”
It is fitting that in this season we pay attention to the suffering around us and seek to meet the needs of the hungry and hurting. To draw close to the suffering of Christ is to draw close to those suffering in our midst. It is in the faces of the hungry, the displaced, and the oppressed that we see the image of Christ reflected back to us.
The news of the war in Ukraine continues to be devastating. As the people of God, let’s take this Lenten season to seek God’s kingdom here on earth by praying and giving to the people of Ukraine.
