Dear Friend of Open Door:

Thank you so much for the donation of $102.00 to Open Door Youth Gang Alternatives.  Our efforts to deter young people form being involved in negative activities are greatly enhanced by this caring contribution.
May God bless you for reaching out and extending your support to our youth.  

Sincerely, Rev. Leon Kelly, Executive Director

Dear God’s Grace Missional Community,

I'm writing you coming off of the fantastic high of being with my family for a week. The time we spent together and the love that we all experienced has only opened my eyes more to the incredible blessings I have in my life here in Mexico. As my attention is called to the blessings that surround me here, I also begin to think about the blessings that I have back at home. I want to extend a very warm thank you for your continued donations of money and prayers for the work that I am doing. The time I have left will go by fast but know that your thoughts, prayers and monetary donations do not go unnoticed and will not be quickly forgotten. I hope that all is well as you enter into the beautiful world of Spring and I am anxiously awaiting the day when we are back together and I can share my experiences with you all. 

Thanks again and God bless!

Kyle Larson

It is with a very grateful heart that I write this note to thank you for your Lenten donation and for your continuing support & prayers. God is so good and so is his church. 

Joyfully His, 

Pam Harvey, National Director of Advocacy and Education for Transitions Global.

Thank you very much for the AMC card.  It is very generous of you to think of me (and Girard and Remy)  May God bless you and your families.  On behalf of my family, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. 

Fondly, 

Carolina Aguirre

Thank you for your support ( in reference to the $1000,00 check given to the organization in November)

Dear Church,

We are honored to know your loving and giving church.  You truly are a friend and we are looking forward to what the future will bring. 

Love, Jude & Cindy

Dear Friend of Open Door:

Thank you so much for the donation of $2,000.00 to Open Door Youth Gang Alternatives Christmas Party.  Our efforts to deter young people from being involved in negative activities are greatly enhanced by this caring contribution.  May God bless your for reaching out and extending your support to our youth.  

Sincerely, Rev. Leon Kelly  Executive Director

You're Amazing!  Thanks! 

To everyone at God's Grace Community ChurchThank you for being a part of The Gathering Place community and doing Bingo each month.  The clients look forward to it and it's such a festive activity this time of year.  Trisha  P.S.  The cookies were delicious!  

Thanks for adding to the joy of our holidays at TGP. Justine

Hi Claudia.

Just wanted to pass on this picture of Bismark and our new Love Light & Melody mercy chariot!!! Thank you so much to you and the congregation at GGCC for your love, effort and help here in assisting LLM to get these new wheels...
We are so incredibly blessed by you all!!

Blessings.
Ingrid Schneider for Love Light and Melody.

Hi David,

On behalf of the RCHS staff, I would like to thank you for the wonderful food basket we received today. Thanks so much for all of your support of Rock Canyon.

Merry Christmas,

Andy

"I was so grateful to have gotten the Thanksgiving Basket for my family because it allowed me to save money to use for Christmas gifts this year. If it hadn’t been for the basket the kids would not have gotten gifts."

"I was thankful for the help because without it my family would not have celebrated Thanksgiving at all this year.”

From a teacher -  “I always knew GGCC helped many of our families at Paris, but this year I couldn’t believe how many they touched. We were able to reach out to so many more families that really needed the help thanks to GGCC. So many of our kids came back with wonderful stories about their holiday to talk and write about.”

Thank you for your recent in-kind contribution of food to The Gathering Place, received 9/27/2011.  Your donation is deeply appreciated by those in our community who are experiencing homelessness and poverty.

Warm regards,

The clients, staff and volunteers of The Gathering Place

Thank you  -Your generosity and beauty of spirit are a blessing.

Dear Claudia, Pastor Dave & All of our "family" from God's Grace!

Just a quick message of thanks and love from all of us at Open Door!  I honestly cannot explain what your "presence" means to me and every one of our children. Know that we love and appreciate you ALL SO MUCH.   Rick, Rev & the Staff & All of our Kids

Claudia & Crew.  Thank you so much for the delicious breakfast on September 23rd. Our staff so appreciated it! Sarah Pascoe

Thanks. Joan Cloud

Thanks for all you do to support us.  Melissa Rosati

Thank you.  J Robinett

Thank you for everything!  Kristi Piccone

Thanks for the yummy grub!  The Counseling Dept.

Thank you so much. We appreciated your time & efforts!  Sharon Stevens

Thank you for the wonderful things you do for RCHS.  Kathleen Kennedy

Thank you.  Performing Arts

Merci & Gracias.  The World Language Teachers

Thank you Art Dept.  

Thank you for your continued support. Sincerely Andy Abner

Thanks for the support.  RCHS Social Studies

Thanks! Awesome. PE Dept. 

God's Grace Community Church,

On behalf of the Extreme Community Makeover, thanks for your continued partnership with ECM & for being the group that reached the mark of having 10,000 volunteers who have completed 1,000 projects!  I am so excited about that milestone.  It's been great to work together in the Westwood neighborhood to make a difference "one block at a time!"  Thanks again!! 

 Angela Bomgaars

Dear GGCC Missional Community,

I just wanted to extend a warm thank you to all that have contributed both monetary and spiritual resources to the work that I'm doing in Mexico. Please know that without both types of support, being a volunteer in Mexico for a year just wouldn't be possible. I appreciate all the work that GGCC is doing in the community and I like to think of this year as an extension of the mission and vision of GGCC in the world. 

I just got settled into my host home and have just begun my job. My Mexico family consists of Alberto, Debora, my 5 year old sister Camila and my three month old beagle puppy, Lua. It's a great home away from home and a place that I have already grown to love. My job placement is at an organization called La Casa de la Sal. It's a non-profit organization that helps people with HIV/AIDS to get the help and resources that they need. Eventually, once my Spanish gets better, I will be teaching HIV/AIDS awareness classes in the public schools surrounding La Casa de la Sal.

I'm extremely excited about the opportunities that lie ahead of me and can't wait to share this journey with all of you. Thanks again for all of your support and know that it's extremely appreciated. Be on the lookout for newsletter updates each month and feel free to check out my blog at http://yagmkylelarson.blogspot.com/

Thanks again and buenos dias!

Kyle Larson

Dear Nancy and everyone at God's Grace CC,

Good morning. I hope you are well. I wanted to take a moment to say thank you to you and everyone else at God's Grace Community Church for your gift. This has certainly been a very busy year for everyone here at Convoy of Hope as we have been serving close to home and around the world. We would not be able to minister to those in need if it wasn't for people like all of you who have a heart of compassion and care to step up and make a difference.

Thank you and have a great week!

Jeff Roman
Director - Corporate Relations

We give thanks for our partnership with Paris Elementary School.  We recently received these testimonials from  grateful Paris Elementary School parents and teachers for school supplies donated.

Elisa Varela - Family Liason - "We greatly appreciate everything you and the GGCC community does for Paris!"

Juarez Family: “The start of the school year is always a wonderful time for our kids and family, but last year, with my husband out of work and our kids needing school supplies, we had quite a rough start to the school year. Thanks to donations from GGCC, our kids were able have supplies to do homework at home and feel just like all the other kids who brought supplies to their classroom. Thanks so much, GGCC!”

Cantillo Family: “On their first day of school my kids, David, Jocelyn and Bryan did not want to go. This was very strange to me because they had been excited to start all summer long. When I asked them what was wrong, they told me that they were embarrassed to go to school without backpacks, but we could not afford them, so I felt completely helpless. Thanks to GGCC my kids had backpacks for the school year, and felt more at ease going to school to learn. Thanks GGCC!”

Matthew Nava (Paris teacher): “The start of the school year is always a great time for all of us here at Paris, but we know that it can also be a very hard time on our families as they struggle to buy school supplies for their kids. Thanks to GGCC, families who are not able to purchase supplies have access to them and feel supported and connected to Paris and GGCC. We are very grateful for GGCC at Paris.

Claudia,

My name is Mark Sikora, and I am counselor at Mesa Middle School.  Terry Luce brought school supplies to our school to help students and families in need.  Thank you so much for making this possible, we sincerely appreciate it!

Thanks again,
Mark

Dear God's Grace Community Church,

Thank you for making our summer special.Thank you so much for your food donation to camp HALO and all of tyour support!  Everyone at HALO really appreciates all you have given to our amazing youth.    

Thanks again.  

The HALO Foundation

Dear God's Grace,

Thank you for all you've done to help us here at Rock Canyon High!  The breakfast you prepared and served was absolutely delicious.  Our staff was very appreciative - so were those of us who often prepare the meals for staff, too! Also, thanks for your help with bar coding our textbooks. You have all gone above and beyond to support us and we want you to know how grateful we are.   Sincerely, Sarah Pascoe 

Thank you for your continued support.  I look forward to future opportunities to work together.  Sincerely, Andy Abner

Thank you, thank you.  Kathleen Kennedy

Thanks for everything .  Tom Brieske

Thanks so much!  Lissa Staal

Thank you for all you do.  Please extend my thank you to the congregation.  Gregg Sheehan

Thank you for being a great part of our community.  Nick Laatsch

You all are wonderful.  Karen Sims

Thank you for all you do.  God Bless  Maxine Coppage

Thanks for a great start to the school year!  Megan Brown

Thank you so much for everything. Cheri Nathan

Dear GGCC,

After spending time with my Mom, Vikki Luce and Mary Jo Bruner this past weekend I feel it is important to share with you about the impact you are having here in Nicaragua!

We were all taken aback by the amount of donations that you accumlated and sent down here. What a blessing they are to the kids in the home inEl Cruceroand to the community of Tipitapa- a growing trash dump community very much in need of a lot of things. Your donations may not seem like much, but let me tell you, they are a lot! You touched the lives of countless kiddos in Nicaragua. Thank you for your obedience to Christ, and your generous spirits.

I also want to thank you for your support towards myself, and your prayers for me and the kids that I´m working with. My Mom told me more about it. I am humbled and SO grateful! Your prayers and thoughts are felt, so appreciated, and so necessary in what I am doing down here, and for the kids I am with. I ask that you continue to pray for them and for myself- and I thank you in advance for that as well!

God is present here. Thank you for being a part of this!

I´ll see you all soon!

Blessings,
Amanda Jensen

In 2010 God's Grace donated $16,205 to the Haitian Timoun Foundation. (HTF).  Know that your gifts to HTF impacts lives!

Representatives from HTF will be at the Fonkoze (Haiti's Alternative Bank for the Organized Poor) "Haiti - One Year Later" event in New York,  January 10.  This event will benefit the programs of the Fonkoze Family and pay special tribute to their CLM program.  HTF believes they will be able to declare at this event another $100,000 (or more) in CLM gifts to launch more families on the path to a better life.  For more information on Fonkoze go to www.fonkoze.org or HTF/CLM go to www.htflive.org

We recently received this e-mail sent to Dr. Rick Barger, HTF Founder, from Gauthier Dieudonne, Director of Fonkoze's CLM (Chemen Lavi Miyo - A Path to a Better Life) program. 

Dear Pastor Rick,

You are always praising us at Fonkoze and the CLM staff in particular for the work that we do, and I personally thank you for that.  I am even more grateful for the determination of people like you that allows us to do what we do.  The pilot taught us that we can make a long lasting difference in the lives of those living in subhuman conditions and we vowed to do all we can to continue doing that.  Thank God that you and your team see through the same scope as we do, and many thanks to all of the church members who took a leap of faith by donating what they can to help save families living in extreme poverty.  They trust us with their dollars, hoping that we would do what we said we would.  Despair not because it is a privilege for me to do what I do.  I thank God everyday for giving me such an opportunity and by giving such meaning to my life.  Many times the CLM members thank me, rub my head and shower me with hugs, but it is I who am grateful to God and to them for allowing me to be a part of their lives and helping to make all of the necessary changes on the road to a better life.

Through the CLM program, we are ables to restore human dignity.  The children are going to school, and families are taking at least two meals a day.  Who could better testify to that but a CLM member who has gone through the program and vowed seventy seven times seven never to go back to life before CLM?

The graduation ceremony is such an emotional event that I have hard time containing myself. It is said that a man should not cry, so I choke on my tears causing my voice to lose its intonation. I would have loved very much for you and members of your team to have lived that event and shared this shower of emotion, but the situation in the country didn't permit that.

As we continue to scale up the program, life stories during final verification are even sadder.  Many times I wonder how long my heart will be able to support this constant pounding cause by the misery that I have heard and seen meeting for the first time the newly selected CLM members.  My only consolation is that after eighteen months, I will be hearing a different tune and facial expressions will be nothing but smiles.

As long as God permits it, I will continue to do this work and I depend on you and others like you to help us and help me to get the means to do it.  May it be funds for 120, 84, 50, or 100 or 1000 families, it is all good for us.  We have the dream to eliminated extreme poverty in the Central Plateau going from village to village.  Every family saved through the CLM program is a triumph in the fight against extreme poverty.  HTF is participating in that dream and we want HTF to be standing side by side with us every time we claim a victory in the battle against poverty.

God's blessings be upon you, your family and the entire HTF team.

May the New Year bring peace to all and may Christ's love glow in our hearts so we may share that love with one another.

Gauthier

Claudia & Carolers from God's Grace Community Church,

May your holiday be filled with the sounds of love, peace and joy. Thank you for spreading joy to our clients this holiday season.

Merry Christmas.

Wendy - Program Administrator, Developmental Pathways

(Developmental Pathways, is an organization that provides support and services for individuals who have developmental disabilities and their families).

Dear Claudia:

On behalf of the Extreme Community Makeover (ECM), I wanted to take this opportunity to thank God's Grace Community Church for your involvement in ECM this year, as well as to share some of the highlights of the year with you.  In 2010, ECM expanded into two additional neighborhoods: Barnum and Westwood.  Working in both of these communities has been a natural transition as key relationships with individuals and organizations in these neighborhoods transpired quickly. Working in six different communities this year meant there was always plenty to do to keep the many volunteers busy.

The number of volunteers grew steadily again this year with 2,835 volunteers involved in ECM.  Those individuals represented 127 groups from churches, companies, families, and schools across the Denver metro area, as well as many more out of state groups than in previous years.  The number of groups is a significant increase over last year, reflecting how people continue to get the word out abut ECM and want to get involved.

With all these volunteers, ECM was able to work together with 328 families/residents in the Barnum, Globeville, La Alma/Lincoln Park, Villa Park, West Colfax, and Westwood neighborhoods to complete many painting and yard work projects, as well as fence repair, landscaping, and other types of projects.  ECM volunteers also partnered extensively with the City of Denver to remove graffiti and clean alleys on 734 blocks in these communities.  During the survey process, where initial connections are made with the residents, 152 people were signed up for an energy efficiency referral to Groundwork Denver, 117 people were registered for recycling, and 150 people were enrolled to receive free trees through Denver Digs. 

However, one of the  most exciting aspects of this year was to see the number of community residents getting involved in their own community increase substantially. For example, while knocking on doors on a block that ECM was going to work on in the near future, a recent graduate from the University of Colorado, Luis, answered the door.  He lived in a house with his extended family and said they were pretty capable of taking care of those projects on their own.  However, he wanted to get involved and make a difference in the community. Since ECM was moving into the summer season with many weekday projects, Luis showed up 2-3 days a week throughout the summer to help his neighbors with projects at their homes.  More and more community residents ECM worked with also indicated wanting to "pay it forward" by being involved in  the future ECM days or by helping their neighbors, which is one of the main goals of ECM.

Another thing underway right now is being very close to completing the application to the IRS for 501 (c)(3) tax-exemption status specifically for Extreme Community Makeover, which is just about ready to go into the mail.  Anticipating the future of ECM and all that is in store through moving ahead with this process is very exciting!

I hope this letter provides a brief synopsis to the tremendous efforts that a multitude of groups and individuals made possible this year.  We could not have done it without your support, so thank you again for partnering with the Extreme Community Makeover to impact Denver communities.  Best wishes during the holiday season and a Happy 2011!

Sincerely,

Angela Bomgaars - Extreme Community Makeover Director

A new year

A new season of hope

25 years of service to women and children

We have much to celebrate and many more to serve.  Thank you for your generosity and support in 2010.  Together, we make a difference.

Best wishes,

The Gathering Place