Pastoral Care Annual Report for 2020
The Pastoral Care Committee of Third Haven works to provide and maintain a caring meeting community. We embrace that role while recognizing that many other members and attenders contribute significantly to the health of our faith community.
Each Pastoral Care Committee member is responsible for maintaining ongoing outreach to the members and attenders on their list. In addition, the committee plans two lunches and one picnic annually and presents informational discussions on the topic of Aging As Friends.
The arrival of COVID19 and subsequent restrictions on meeting in person made the work of the committee both more challenging and more essential this year. Although we had to cancel our usual events, we stayed in touch with members and attenders by phone, mail and email more regularly than usual, and some members of the committee scheduled socially distanced visits with those who were housebound. The committee assisted the Clerk with the delivery of care packages to two families that were experiencing serious illnesses and in the case of one family, the delivery of meals via Meal Train.
Members of the committee worked with the Communication Committee to update and revise the Third Haven Friends Meeting Directory.
The committee was able to hold a Clearness Committee for the Purpose of Membership for Jonathan Williams and welcome Ellen Silbergeld, who transferred her membership from the Homewood Meeting in Baltimore.
We collaborated with other committees to offer effective outreach and became a cosponsor of a monthly Meeting for Light with Attention to Healing, which debuted on December 20th.
In 2020, the committee was represented by the following: Lorraine Claggett, Tom Corl, Marsie Hawkinson, Steve Meixner, Dee Rein, Adrienne Rudge, Candace Shattuck, John Schreiner and Dona Sorce(clerk). Candace resigned from the committee when she moved to Seattle in late spring.
The committee looks forward to welcoming two new members in 2021 and continuing our ongoing effort to assist members and attenders in a caring and supportive manner.