Opportunities to Serve

What a blessing it is to be a blessing to others! Below are some opportunities to reach out and share God's love beyond Trinity's walls. If you'd like to find out more about these opportunities, please talk with the contact person listed or call the church office.

Advocates of Ozaukee

Advocates operates a shelter for individuals seeking a temporary safe haven from situations of domestic and/or sexual violence and assists clients on an outreach basis.

Items Collected:
Old cell phones recycled to earn money for their agency.

All Peoples Church

As a partner with All Peoples, Trinity supports this community of faith in Milwaukee's central city with prayer, financial resources (supported through our mission envelopes), and sharing ideas, time and talents of our members. We are always looking for ways to enhance our relationship for the sake of Jesus Christ in the world. In the past we've eaten and worshiped together during a Lenten service at Trinity, provided lunch for the Kids Working to Succeed program, and worshiped together at All Peoples. We look forward to continuing to grow together as people of faith.

Bread of Healing Clinic

The Bread of Healing Clinic began as a ministry of Cross Lutheran Church, established with the support of community partners (UW-Madison Medical School, Aurora Health Care, other local churches). It continues now as a separately incorporated organization, holding clinics at Cross Lutheran Church, Eastbrook Church and Florist Clinic at Traveler's Rest Ministries.

Items Collected:
Empty prescription bottles (please completely remove the labels and the adhesive left on the bottles, and wash out the bottles so there's no danger of mixing the residue of your medication with a new medication).

Lions Clubs International

Donate glasses and change someone's life. Imagine if you could help a child read. An adult succeed in his job. A senior maintain her independence. And provide a community with more opportunities to grow and thrive. Every day, the recycled eyeglass programs of Lions Clubs do all of this and more.

Items Collected:
Eyeglasses

Lutheran World Relief

Empowered by God's unconditional love in Jesus Christ, Lutheran World Relief envisions a world in which each person and every generation lives in justice, dignity, and peace. LWR works with partners in 50 countries to help people grow food, improve health, strengthen communities, end conflict, build livelihoods and recover from disasters.

Put your faith into action. Share tools for better health, education, and comfort by donating supplies to make quilts and assemble kits. We have ongoing collections throughout the year that are shipped in October.

Personal Care Kits
When LWR distributes Personal Care Kits, it's often to people who have lost everything. In the wake of an earthquake, or having fled from violence as their homes were overtaken, they clasp a towel from a faraway place, with a bar of soap, a toothbrush ... and washing up, they know that they have not been forsaken by the world. The very simple gesture of giving a Personal Care Kit can give someone the encouragement to start anew, starting with a bath. You can share God's grace and love by providing that simple comfort.

School Kits
Why school supplies? To the children who receive School Kits, these supplies mean the difference between getting an education or not. Public school is usually free, but in the places where LWR works, even a few required supplies, like pens and paper, may be more than many families can afford. And when parents can only afford to send one of their children to school, girls rarely get priority ... yet the education level of mothers has the biggest impact on development.

For more information, contact Donna Kramer.

Mr. Bob’s Under the Bridge

Mr. Bob's Under the Bridge is dedicated to helping the homeless in the greater Milwaukee area. Items are collected and made into care packets and then distributed to the homeless in Milwaukee.

Items Collected:
Hotel-sized hygiene items

Next Door Foundation

Located in downtown Milwaukee, the mission of Next Door is to support the intellectual, physical, spiritual and emotional development of children so they become self-sufficient, contributing members of the community. Their Books for Kids program was established in 1990 with the hope that all children in Milwaukee's central city, regardless of family income or education levels, could have books to call their own. Books for Kids distributes over 50,000 books each year.

Items Collected:
New or gently used children's books, baby board books, children's dictionaries and cookbooks, multicultural books, and parenting books.

For more information, contact Donna Kramer.

Quilters

Quilts are assembled for distribution to Lutheran World Relief and other places in need. All are welcome -- no experience necessary! If you can't join us on Mondays, you can work at home cutting and sewing together squares and making quilt backs.

Meeting times are the 1st & 3rd Mondays of each month, 9am in the church dining hall.

For more information, contact Carolyn Anderson.

Items Collected:
Materials such as clean bedsheets, bedspreads, fabric and blankets. Bring donations to the quilters room (across from the women's restroom in the dining hall).

Ronald McDonald House

Save the pull tabs off of aluminum cans and help the Ronald McDonald House provide lodging (near Children's Hospital) for families of ill children. Money raised is not used for medical bills or family travel.

Items Collected:
Aluminum can pull tabs

Ozaukee Food Alliance

The pantry provides warm meals, groceries, school supplies and support to families in need in Ozaukee County. Trinity supports the pantry through a food collection at Thanksgiving, and also supports other food collections during the year. Trinity has also served free community meals at the pantry, as well as sponsored and volunteered at a Mobile Food Pantry.

ITEMS COLLECTED:
Non-perishable food

St. Ben’s Community Meal

Located in Milwaukee, St. Ben's serves an average of 375 homeless and hungry guests each night. The food is purchased, prepared and brought to the church each night by volunteers from some 75 churches, community groups and workplaces. Trinity partners with Faith Lutheran Church in Cedarburg to prepare and serve meals at St. Ben’s in the afternoon, the 2nd Friday every other month. You can help by coming along to serve food, or by helping to prepare the food at Trinity.

For more information, contact Donna Kramer

Time and Talents for Children

Time and Talents for Children is an ongoing ministry to help the people of Central America, especially Guatemala. Dental and building teams are sent to partner with and offer assistance.

Items Collected:
Flashcards for math and for letters and early words

For more information, contact Greg and Jody Hoffmann.

Donation List

Here are some items Trinity collects and distributes or recycles. Details about some of the groups benefiting from these items are listed above. Please bring items to the Gathering Area and put them in the designated collection container. If you know of something we should collect, please let the Care Crew know.

  • Aluminum can pull tabs for Ronald McDonald House

  • Athletic shoes (used) (no shoes with cleats or spikes) for recycling through Nike Reuse-a-Shoe or donation to shelters

  • Batteries (dead) (not car) for recycling

  • Bed sheets and cotton fabric for quilts

  • Books and magazines (used) for Cedarburg Friends of the Library to raise money for the library's needs

  • Cellphones for Advocates of Ozaukee, who recycles them through an environmentally responsible zero-landfill process

  • Children's books (new and gently used) for the Next Door Foundation's Books for Kids

  • Christmas tree lights (burned out) for Cedarburg High School German Club

  • Clothing, bedding, coats (clean and gently used) for various outreach programs such as Guest House and Milwaukee Rescue Mission (separate and mark men's, women's, children's and baby clothes to make sorting and distribution easier)

  • Corks for recycling

  • Eyeglasses for Lions International

  • Flashcards for math and for letters and early words for Time and Talents for Children

  • Hotel toiletries for Mr. Bob's Under the Bridge

  • Ink cartridges (empty) for recycling

  • Non-perishable food, personal hygiene and cleaning supplies for local food pantries

  • Personal care items for Lutheran World Relief kits (see list of items below)

  • Plastic bags, to keep them out of the waste stream

  • Prescription bottles (take off labels) for Bread of Healing Clinic in Milwaukee

  • School supplies for Lutheran World Relief school kits (see list of items below)

  • Shoes (gently used; all ages) for local and international social service agencies

  • Yarn - drop it off or pick some up. Baby sweaters, hats, scarves, mittens can be donated for various community projects.

We do not collect:

  • Computers (take them to a recycle center or watch the paper for computer recycling events)

  • Leftover prescription medicine. Your unused, unwanted, expired household and prescription medications can be taken to the following locations: Police departments in Cedarburg, Grafton, Mequon, Thiensville, Port Washington and Saukville, and the Sheriff's Department in Port Washington. Simply bring in your medications, in their original containers (with your name blacked out) and place them in the secure container provided.

  • Burned-out lightbulbs