WAYS WE SUPPORT THE COMMUNITY
There is a reason that we have “Community” in our name. We are a church congregation committed to supporting the individuals and families living in Tully and neighboring communities. TUCC helps promote the health of our community in a variety of ways.
The first Sunday of the month, food and supplies are collected for the community food pantry housed at St. Leo’s.
TUCC created an emergency need fund called Fishermen’s Net. Church representatives work with P.E.A.C.E. headquartered in the village to identify and address emergency needs of community individuals and families. Vouchers are provided for food, gas, or clothing. In addition on occasion, money is provided to pay a portion of National grid bill or rental payments. St. Leo’s Outreach often partners with us to help.
Each fall the church participates in the Backpack/School Supply Program to ensure that local children are ready for school. The Mission and Outreach Board coordinates our efforts.
The church represented by Sally Greene helps coordinate the Red Cross blood drive in Tully on a regular basis.
The Ladies Circle works on Brother's Keepers Quilts for the Rescue Mission. They produce sleeping bags stuffed with sweatpants, sweatshirt, socks, hat, and gloves. Each sleeping bag takes about three months to make. They group meets the first Monday of the Month and the meeting includes time to socialize over lunch. Travel size toiletries are also collected and routinely taken to the Rescue Mission. These can be dropped off to the office anytime. Nancy Chawgo is the contact person.
The church collects TABS from cans of all types: soup, veggies, tuna, beverages for the Solvay Shriners. There is a large jar in the Fellowship Hall for people to drop off TABS. The Shriner's convert these tabs into funds to buy transportation for children needing dialysis.
Mission and Outreach Board guide the church in filling and sending Flood Buckets to areas afflicted by hurricanes and heavy rains. John Burgett has mobilized the church and community to gather the needed supplies.
At Thanksgiving and Christmas TUCC supports the efforts of Peace to provide Thanksgiving Food Baskets and Angel Tree Christmas Gifts.
In addition the church offers our building to house meetings and gatherings.
The doors of our church are open to any community group needing space for meetings, educational events, celebrations, or fundraising. Our fellowship hall sees regular meetings of the Boy Scouts, Senior Luncheons, and Rotary. The room is used for community group meetings, staging for fund raising sales, and blood drives. Our educational wing houses a children’s library, the daily meetings of AA, weekly meetings of Hear-to-Learn and regular English-as-a-Second-Language classes for local Kurdish refugees.
TUCC is one of only three commercial kitchens in Tully approved to cook food for the public. The church offers weekly luncheons for senior and sponsors free community dinners. The kitchen is also used by community groups for cooking and serving food. The Boy Scouts have used the kitchen and Fellowship Hall for fundraising spaghetti dinners, the Rotary has a monthly breakfast meeting, the Senior Citizens group has regular dinners, and the Community Chili Cook Off offers the church kitchen as an approved site for chili preparation.
The sanctuary provides good acoustics, adequate space, and flexible organization, a grand piano and a vintage pipe organ. It is used frequently as practice space for local musical and theatrical groups and supports sponsored musical events. The Church itself is the sponsor of Tully United for the Arts which hosts concerts and other musical events for the community
TUCC parking lot serves as a local parking spot for senior groups going on overnight sightseeing trips and the location of a small, permanent 24 hour emergency food box. Recently, groups have used the parking lot to stage the Rotary tree give-away and the Scout silent auction.