For Faith Leaders
Congregations built the Haven in 1980. Forty-six years later, they are still filling volunteer shifts, running food drives, and telling people we are here. Congregations of every faith are part of that work.
Updates to share
Here is what is happening at the Haven right now, and everything below is written to drop straight into a bulletin, a newsletter, or Sunday announcements. If you want a version written for your congregation specifically, Kristen will write one for you.
Feel free to copy and paste!
Bulletin insert
The Upper Valley Haven’s Community Food Market is free and open to anyone who needs food, with no income verification and no appointment. Fresh produce, dairy, protein, shelf stable goods, toiletries, and pet food. uppervalleyhaven.org
Newsletter
The Upper Valley Haven’s Community Food Market works like a small grocery store, except there is no cost. People walk the aisles and choose what their household will actually eat, including fresh produce, dairy, protein, shelf stable goods, toiletries, and pet food. There is no income verification and no appointment needed. Anyone who needs food can come.
The Haven is also opening the Patrick and Marcelle Leahy Shelter and Resource Center this fall, a year round shelter with twenty beds for adults without stable housing, along with a first floor resource center where guests can meet with service coordinators and partner organizations.
Learn more at uppervalleyhaven.org.
Host a drive
Drives from congregations fill a real gap, especially in late summer and midwinter when donations slow down and need does not.
What helps most right now
- Toiletries (Full size appreciated)
- Bath Towels/Washcloths
- Disinfectant Spray/Wipes
- Shelf-stable Proteins
- Jams/Jellies
- Hearty soups
- Peanut Butter
What we cannot accept
- Canned goods more than a year past the date on the label
- Homemade food, or anything without nutrition facts on the package
- Clothing, with occasional exceptions for winter gear. Listen Community Services takes clothing donations
Volunteer
Congregational groups volunteer at the Haven year round, sorting donations, stocking the Community Food Market, preparing meals, and working in the gardens. Groups can come once or on a regular schedule.
For more information, email Sarah Myers.
Visit the Haven
The clearest way to understand the work is to walk through it. Tours take about an hour and cover the Community Food Market, the shelters, and all of our programs. To schedule one, email Kristen Coats.
There are so many ways that the Haven wraps their services around people, and takes care of them.
Marisa, Community Member
Our beginnings
The Haven started in a prayer group. In 1980, five people from St. Paul’s and St. James’ Episcopal Churches began meeting weekly about the people they kept seeing who needed shelter, people their individual congregations could not help on their own.
They took out a mortgage on the run down farmhouse behind St. Paul’s, listed at $54,000, and spent a year fixing it. Workdays were announced from the pulpit. Episcopalians, Methodists, Catholics, and members of the United Church of Christ steamed four layers of wallpaper off the walls together.
The first family arrived on December 15, 1981. Their name was Bishop. The host couple who welcomed them were named Church.
Congregations still run food drives, still fill volunteer shifts, still show up in January when the shelters are full.
Questions
Kristen is your first call for anything on this page, whether it is a drive, a tour, a volunteer group, or a bulletin blurb written for your congregation.
Kristen Coats
Development & Communications Assistant
kcoats@uppervalleyhaven.org
802-478-1810
Upper Valley Haven
713 Hartford Avenue
White River Junction, VT 05001