Outreach at Ascension
Why Outreach Matters
We reach out together to serve our community because it allows us to live into Jesus’ message and direction to serve others, because it helps us build community at Ascension and in the wider community, and because it is a critical means of evangelism. We want to be known by our love.
Christmas Giving Tree
This year our Christmas Giving Tree will support gifts for the Center for Work Education and Employment (CWEE) and Locally Haiti. CWEE’s program provides essential support for low-income career seeking parents. For CWEE gifts will be unwrapped toys and other gifts for their Christmas Market. Locally Haiti is our long-term partner who invests in locally led initiatives in Petit Trou de Nippes, a growing rural community of approximately 40,000. Their programs are integrated across education (including St. Paul’s school in Petit Trou), agriculture and food security, community health (including the newly opened hospital), and girls’ empowerment.
How to participate: Choose one or more gift tags from the tree in the Parish Hall. For CWEE gifts, please bring the unwrapped toy or gift and place it under the tree by Sunday December 14. Gift cards may be placed in envelopes. For Locally Haiti, choose a tag and make a financial donation to Locally Haiti at www.locallyhaiti.org. These tags can be kept or given as a gift with your donation honoring a loved one.
Locally Haiti Christmas Market
Once again, we are hosting Locally Haiti’s Christmas Market on December 7. The market will be available for Haitian art and Christmas gifts between services and after the 10 am service on December 7. The market will remain open all afternoon and conclude with a reception at 4 pm. Open to all!
General Outreach Information
Ascension works hard to provide relief to those suffering and in need within and beyond our immediate neighborhood through partnering both financially and in service with various organizations and programs:
Locally Haiti, a nonprofit focused on investing in Haitian leaders doing transformative work in education, girls’ empowerment, agriculture, and community health. As recent as September 2019, Ascension has sent work teams to perform services on site.
Metro Caring, Denver's frontline anti-hunger organization, works with our community to meet people’s immediate need for nutritious food while building a movement to address the root causes of hunger. Metro Caring offers innovative programming in Healthy Foods Access, Nutrition Education and Cooking Classes, ID Procurement, Urban Gardening, and Community Activation.
St. Francis Center, a refuge for men and women who are homeless in the metro Denver area, providing shelter along with services that enable people to meet their basic needs for daily survival and to transition out of homelessness.
Women’s Homelessness Initiative, a consortium of churches working through Capitol Hill United Ministries to give sanctuary and hospitality every night to support women experiencing homelessness through various services. What WHI offers is a chance to have these women – our women – be known, heard and cared for with compassion, dignity, respect and presence of heart.
Urban Peak. Church of the Ascension partners with Urban Peak to support youth experiencing homelessness in the Denver area. Urban Peak's mission is to ignite the potential in youth to exit homelessness and create self-determined, fulfilled lives. They provide essential services including shelter, street outreach, education, employment support, and case management.
Center for Work Education and Employment (CWEE) empowers low-income families by providing training, education, and employment support. They offer ongoing programs to assist individuals in achieving self-sufficiency. CWEE is a contractor for Arapahoe and Denver Counties, providing case management and supportive services to families experiencing poverty, homelessness, hunger, and violence that are receiving federal benefits including Medicaid, TANF, SNAP and WIC.
St. Elizabeth's School is an intentionally inclusive K–8 Episcopal school in Denver. They offer an Extended Day Program and After School Enrichment classes, including choir, sports, music, and yoga, based on student interests.
We also have a ministry that provides meals upon request to ill or homebound parish members.
Please contact Chris Nazar if you would like to get more involved in outreach at Ascension.
“Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?” And the Lord said, “Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.” —Matthew 25:37-40