Christ Church Cares: Christ Church Cares is our way of reaching out to our community with hands-on projects.   We help people with tasks that are too overwhelming to tackle alone. 

In the past we have cleaned yards and houses.  We've painted and done small construction projects. We helped spruce up the DCF offices in Danbury, and we look forward to what God has in store for us next.  

Christmas Cookie Wrap

Each year on a Saturday in early December, members of Christ Church parish donate homemade or store bought cookies which are plated and wrapped and delivered to older members of the parish, friends of the parish and others who could use a little cheer at that time of year. Covid interrupted that outreach for a couple of years but we were back on track in December of 2022. It is a fun activity for all who are involved.

DCF: We have a close working relationship with our Covenant to Care Social Worker at the Department of Children and Families (DCF) in Danbury.  Each Christmas and Easter we receive a list of local families who cannot afford to put a lavish meal on their tables.  We team up to provide a wonderful feast for these families.  Parishioners love to provide the holiday baskets for this long established and much loved outreach program in our parish.

Dorothy Day Hospitality House Meals:  Each month parishioners contribute spaghetti, sauce, and meatballs to this shelter for feeding the homeless and the working poor in Danbury.  Our meal group monitors the contributions and takes them over to Danbury once each month.

Our Doves program is a way for us to reach out to the neediest in our area at Christmastime.  Each Advent we pick a "Dove" from our Christmas tree.  We buy the gift specified for the recipient on the dove.  Then the gifts are delivered in time to help someone local have a better Christmas in the name of Christ.

Five Days with Mom:  These folks organize our outreach to the mothers of Bedford Hills Women’s Correctional Institution.  We host their children for five days in the summer, providing the moms a chance to be with their children.   

Our parish participates each summer in a week-long program where we house the children of moms who are incarcerated in the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility for Women in Bedford Hills, New York.  During the day our guest-kids visit and play with their mothers.  In the late afternoon they return to their host families from our parish for supper, relaxation, and a good night's sleep.  This program has been shown to improve the lives of the women prisoners immensely and to reduce recidivism once they have returned to their families.  

Redding Rakes: On one Saturday in November people of all ages join together to help local residents for whom raking is difficult.  It's great fun and a good chance to get outside and enjoy the fall and the joy of working together to help neighbors.  Church members, scouts, and other volunteers from our town participate. Consider joining us! 

Rise Against Hunger is a non-profit, international hunger-relief organization that provides over 45 million meals every year for otherwise starving children around the world. Working in busy but fun two-hour shifts, our parishioners from eight to 90 helped package over 165,000 meals in one day at Rise Against Hunger's largest event in New England.  The meals we helped to package will feed 452 children for one year!

Each October since 2015, members of Christ Church Parish have joined together with over 700 other volunteers from local houses of worship and community groups at St. Matthew's Episcopal Church in Wilton to help end world hunger in our lifetimes by participating in a "Rise Against Hunger" meal packaging event.

A good and rewarding time is had by all! We are glad that this has become an annual event for our parish.

Laundry Love: Our church partners with a number of other local churches and synagogues and a generous laundromat (!) to provide free laundry services to those in need.

Wells in Uganda: Christ Church is changing lives in Africa by providing funds for new wells in rural Uganda. Our first well, drilled in 2013, is at the Kakoni Primary School, located near the tea-growing region of western Uganda and serves a community of 800 people.  By 2015 we fully funded our second borehole.  It serves 1,400 people, helping them to stay healthy and keeping women safe as they fetch water locally.  Our seventh well was recently completed!  So far we've helped change the lives of over 8,000 people.

We work through a small charity named Call to Care Uganda.  They have already drilled over 50 wells in Uganda, and have provided thousands of clean water cans as well as thousands of bed nets to help curb the spread of malaria.  You can find them on the web at www.calltocareuganda.org. 

And we are also pleased to periodically welcome Martha Hoffman, who created the organization,  to report to us on its progress and to share crafts she brought back on her last visit.

ECW: It is a diocesan gathering of women and men who have come together annually for over 100 years. For the last 15 - 20 years we have averaged about 300-400 attendees. Sue Pople, Alumni Coordinator for the Connecticut

Community Participation: Every spring, the third graders from Redding Elementary School come to visit our historic church to hear stories of what life was like in Redding before and during the Revolutionary War.   Redding was a town where Patriots and Loyalists lived side by side.  The church's rooster weathervane was used for target practice by the British troops camped across the street and the church's first rector, John Beach, was shot at one Sunday morning while giving his sermon by  some hot headed Patriots because he refused to stop praying for the King.  Is war the best way to solve our differences?  We try to give the kids an understanding of the complexities of the Revolutionary War.