Foster Parent Plan
St. Thomas’ parishioners sponsor a child through Foster Parent Plan; another child is sponsored by members of the contemporary music team. The program assists families and communities in under-resourced and developing nations.

Food Bank Sunday
Food Bank Sunday is the first Sunday of each month, when food donations by parishioners are blessed and forwarded to the local food bank.

Campbell’s Soup Labels
In the past year St. Thomas’ has collected 3,892 labels from soup cans, put towards a total of 62,000 labels collected by the Shriners of Northern Alberta. The labels are converted into recreational and educational items for the Shriners Children’s Hospital in Spokane, Washington. The hospital, which helps children from anywhere in the world, has received items worth $12,200 US since 1990 thanks to this program.

Habitat for Humanity
Mike Brown (467-3565) is our contact for this program, which brings volunteers together to help under-resourced people build and own a home in Edmonton. St. Thomas’ provides volunteers for construction work, as well as for provision of food to the construction crews.

Primate’s World Relief & Development Fund
The theme for this fund in the past year has been AIDS and its impact in many areas of the world. A film on the topic was screened at a coffee evening in February. Donations have also been forwarded for emergency relief in several parts of the world.

Refugee Committee
St. Thomas’ refugee committee currently sponsors two people who came to Edmonton from Somalia. We partner with several other organizations to help our friends function and flourish in Canada.

St Faith’s Breakfast Program
The year 2005-06 was St. Thomas’ first for providing volunteers at St. Faith’s Community Meal program for inner-city residents. Our volunteers cooked and served breakfast in October and December 2005, and April 2006. There are plans for St. Thomas’ to continue this involvement every other month.

Loads of Love Tins of Hope
This fundraiser supports Sherwood Park Food Bank, the Bissell Centre and the Mustard Seed Church. Started in 2000 with the support of Zellers in Sherwood Park Mall, the program has now raised close to $16,000. The money is used to buy canned meat, baby formula and soup at a special reduced price offered to us by Zellers. St. Thomas’ volunteers work short shifts collecting loonies and toonies at Zellers entrances in the mall on two weekends in November.

Blankets for Canada
St. Thomas’ parishioners and friends make knitted squares – with some of the yarn donated by other members of the congregation – that go to the Edmonton Women’s Shelter. The shelter has used our squares to make more than 20 blankets over the last three years.

Knit 123
St. Thomas’ knitters invite parishioners from the Church of the Nazarene and St. Augustine’s Anglican in Edmonton to a home in Sherwood Park to knit items and join in prayer. The group contributes squares to Blankets for Canada, and also makes prayer shawls to give to women experiencing illness as well as other items that offer comfort to the community.