Millennium project attracts Christian groups
CW staff
Community and church groups from across the country are jumping on the millennium bandwagon by helping their communities and charities.
“Our Millennium,” a national registry of year 2000 community projects, is attracting several Christian groups. Virtually any type of community-based organization can register a project under one of 10 categories ranging from environment to heritage to arts and culture. The groups in turn, can solicit donations and volunteers through its website (www.ourmillenium.ca).
Holy Trinity Anglican Church in the South Granville area of Vancouver, for example, is creating a millennium garden to “bring a bit of nature back to the city.”
The Wanner Mennonite Church in Cambridge, Ontario is joining with the Preston Mennonite Church to clean and repair an historical marker placed by the Waterloo Historical
Society marking the location of the first Mennonite Meeting House in 1830.
Others are international projects. The Pickering Village United Church Women’s group from Ajax, Ontario has been developing its project for three years. Called Bunny Power 2000, 20-40 women gathered Tuesday mornings to sew stuffed felt bunnies in order to sell them at church and community functions for $5 each. The money raised–$32,000 in total–was donated to Sleeping Children Around the World, a charity which provides bed kits to children in developing countries.
“The women were just totally in love with the idea,” says coordinator Marilyn Brewer. “We would get pictures back of the child who received a bed, standing in front of it smiling. We have several hundred pictures now.” Brewer says the project has been great for many of the senior citizens who took part. “Five or six are well into their eighties; this way they get out and feel that they’re doing something.”