Members of Dungeness Community Church have prepared year-round for the annual event known as Christmas House where the church opens its doors to the community to come and select gifts for family members. The tradition has persevered for at least 22 years and with it a local need persists.

On Saturday, Dec. 13, 187 families, including 329 adults and 542 children, came to Dungeness Community Church to participate in the Christmas culture of giving.

Additionally, prior to Saturday, a group of children from Sequim’s Boys & Girls Club were invited to the church to pick out a toy for themselves, eat pizza and share in games and crafts.

“You get to really know the community and create relationships,” Claudine Sill, a Dungeness Community Church member, said. “I think my favorite part is just getting to help people and it’s a great blessing for those that need it.”

Sill is part of a five-person committee that organizes Christmas House, but about 70 volunteers participate the day of the event. Both used and new gifts of all kinds fill the rooms of the church and any rooms without gifts are converted into wrapping stations.

With donations from QFC, Safeway, Walmart and Sunny Farms, food is served the entirety of the event and family photos as well as a variety of activities are offered.

Because of lack of storage space, in preparation for Christmas House it’s up to individuals from the congregation to gather and store everything from clothing, toys, household goods, tools and outdoor gear. Public donations also contribute to the items available and Christmas House committee member Patti Winnop uses money donations raised throughout the year to shop for new gifts.

“I can’t thank people enough,” Sill said. “Everything they do is a major help.”

Any items remaining once Christmas House is over is donated to Goodwill.

Those with Dungeness Community Church work year-round to create the opportunity for everyone, regardless of economic well-being, to experience giving and receiving a gift for Christmas. Members of Dungeness Community Church are among more than 20 congregations quietly and diligently engaging with the community to help fulfill public needs.

Assisting youth

Many individuals belonging to local congregations annually return to help facilitate Sequim’s Boys & Girls Club Summer Food Service Program to ensure low-income children continue to receive nutritious meals when school is not in session.

Clallam County is an approved Summer Food Service Program site and is thus federally funded by the United States Department of Agriculture because it is acknowledged as a area with “significant concentrations of low-income children,” according to the USDA website.

Additionally, while the academic year is in session individuals from surrounding congregations, such as those with Sequim Valley Nazarene, help students that don’t have regular access to food during the weekends.

“We’re a small church, but we’ve partnered with other organizations and do a Backpack Program to bring food to children that aren’t eating during the weekend,” Pastor Jerry Luengen said. Every week Luengen takes 10 bags filled with six meals to Helen Haller Elementary School.

“Some of the children within our community don’t eat until Monday,” Luengen said. “That’s why we’re reaching out and hope to expand the program because there are way more than 10 children that could benefit from this.”

Adding to the various congregations’ efforts to provide adequate nutrition to local youth, those with Olympic Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, the Baha’i Faith, Olympic Bible Fellowship and St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, only to name a few, have an emphasis on education. Educational support is accomplished differently depending on the individual’s or congregation’s focus, but include facilitating after-school programs, volunteer tutoring, involvement with First Teacher and/or donating school supplies and materials to students.

“My background is in education and I love learning myself so I think it is very important,” Carol Rogers, member of the Baha’i Faith, said.

Rogers volunteers with the Clallam County Literacy Council, spends two days a week at Peninsula Community College’s Sequim extension site and one day a week at the Olympic Peninsula American Red Cross office.

While Rogers devotes her time to various educational outlets, Sue Clary, member of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church and volunteer Senior Warden (president of parish council), said a group from their church volunteers weekly at Sequim Middle School tutoring math.

“We have an amazing group of people that are pretty much devoted to making all this happen,” Clary said after listing a seemingly endless number of community-centric activities members of the church are involved in, including education.

Fulfilling food needs

Youths aren’t the only demographic within Clallam County that receive nutritional support from the ongoing efforts of surrounding congregations. Numerous churches and fellowships interviewed not only financially assist the Sequim Food Bank, but also regularly donate food.

Collaboration among a handful of congregations also occurs every Saturday during the Light Lunch program offered at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church. The Light Lunch has established itself – filling a niche within the community for more than 10 years and has grown from serving just a few individuals to regularly feeding around 50 people, Clary said.

“I’ve known about the Light Lunch at St. Luke’s, but I didn’t really know how it worked,” Andra Smith, administrative assistant at Dungeness Valley Community Church, said. “I just went for the first time and it was great experience.”

Members with Trinity United Methodist Church volunteer at the Light Lunch at St. Luke’s, Marian Needham, office manager at Trinity, said, and also bring together the community during a monthly dinner where they too offer a hot meal to those in need.

Despite local efforts to fill the nutritional needs persisting throughout the county, another public program known simply as Community Service, hosted by those at Sequim Seventh-day Adventist Church, continues to grow since it began roughly 15 years ago, Wayne Christensen, program director, said.

With donations from those within the congregations, Nash’s Organic Produce and Northwest Harvest, the church opens its doors weekly to the community to offer food, clothing and hygiene products. The number of families that participate in the program tend to increase during the winter months, Christensen said, but range from about 70 families in the summer to upwards of 125 in the winter.

During the winter, Christensen and volunteers from the church and community give away a couple thousand pounds of food and an estimated 500 articles of clothing each week.

“There’s a serious need here,” Christensen said.

Christensen has ideas to possibly expand the program to provide nutritional education and recipes along with the food provided because he’s noticed many of the individuals receiving fresh food don’t always know how to prepare it, he said.

“We want to give back to our community and this is one way we try to do that,” Christensen said.

Every bit counts

Although much of the community outreach efforts tend to focus on youth education and nutritional needs of the community, the ongoing efforts sprawl into a variety of public services. For example, members with Olympic Unitarian Universalist Fellowship have long cleaned a portion of U.S. Highway 101 near River Road twice a year. Additionally, members with Dungeness Valley Lutheran Church head up a quarter program that assists low-income families fulfill everyday needs, like laundry, Smith said.

The church also offers its facility as a gathering space for various organizations such as Sequim High School’s LGBT group, Clallam Mosaic and Alcoholics Anonymous.

Adding to the physical goods and services contributed to the community via members of surrounding congregations, nearly every congregation also financially assists local nonprofits and organizations that include, among others, Sequim Food Bank, Salvation Army, Dungeness Valley Health & Wellness Clinic, My Choices, Sequim Community Aid, Habitat for Humanity of Clallam County, Sequim’s Boys & Girls Club and animal welfare groups.

Despite the varying religious foundations and the ongoing work and energy required, individuals belonging to local congregations continue to serve the community in ways not always known.

Together through both intentional and perhaps unintentional collaboration, the various congregations tirelessly contribute year-round to fill the needs of the greater Sequim community and to do so is considered a “blessing” Rick Dietzman, minister to adults at Sequim Community Church, said, noting “it’s not necessarily about benefiting the church.”

“Each of us are responsible for the good that we do in this world,” Rogers, member of the Baha’i Faith, said, while acknowledging the ample opportunity to “do good” here.