Feeding, clothing and housing the poor.

Trinity Anglican Church is engaged in very practical ways in our community.  Here are two examples of how we are making a difference.

Trinity Anglican Thrift Shop is located downstairs and around the back of our church. The Thrift Shop is run by Marilyn Tucker and Maryann Digilio. Together with our other volunteers the shop takes in, organizes and sorts a huge amount of clothing and other items on a weekly basis. They work to ensure that only the best items are displayed.  Some items come from donations.  Others come from consignment. The result is that we provide good clothing very inexpensively, and we give away what doesn't sell is given away to Hope on Haven Hill, a ministry to unwed mothers in recovery.  We also donate clothing to veterans and the elderly in the area.  Some of the clothing we gave away in 2017 went on a tractor trailer to help those in Texas and Louisiana who suffered loss from hurricane Harvey.

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When we talk about feeding those in need we can talk about the easy part and the fun part. Of course, like most churches, we collect food for the food bank. It's important and easy to overlook, but the fact is that these goods go to local ministries to feed people who are struggling to stay fed.  That's the easy part. The fun part is when we prepare and serve food as one of the teams at the Rochester Community Kitchen downtown. In the past Diane Bailey has done the planning and cooking.  Recently Fr. Mirabile has taking over this role for the time being. Being of Italian background it seemed the best thing to prepare was spaghetti and meat sauce, which he made the last two times and it was a big hit - even with the volunteers! We served food just before Christmas and had a huge turn out of volunteers.

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Fr. Mirabile makes a point to get to know the people who come to the community Kitchen.  Two of his favorite people are the twins, Sasha and Tamika. These two girls have shown amazing resilience considering their ever-changing living conditions.  They are not alone. Many of the people who come to the Community Kitchen have tenuous living conditions.  Some live in tents, others live in hotel rooms and others couch surf. There is currently no shelter accommodations in Rochester. The nearest shelter is in Portsmouth, and it is not necessarily a first choice among the homeless population. Recently SOS Recovery helped open up a warming center at the Rochester Community Center.  Fr. Mirabile visited there on January 2nd.  They need volunteers to help monitor the those who come to get warm and sleep. Presently plans are underway to make the warming center a more permanent resource for the homeless community.  One man Fr. Mirabile spoke said, "Ware not homeless.  We are houseless. We are home wherever we lay our heads. Our prayer is that we might be able to help provide resources to continue to address the "houseless" problem in Rochester.

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