Mission Projects – Local/National/International

The Service Ministry at CHPC implements the Church’s ministry to ‘the powerful and powerless’ on Capitol Hill and throughout the world.

Our largest ongoing programs include the Washington Seminar Center, Soup Kitchen, off-site Mission projects, and the Capitol Hill Shelter Project. CHPC is also a member of the Capitol Hill Group Ministry, the largest non-profit social services organization on Capitol Hill dedicated to transitional housing and social services for the homeless and the poor.

Ongoing local service opportunities include:

Brown Bag Lunches — The second Sunday of every month, CHPC members bring to the church prepared brown bag lunches that church members distribute to the homeless in a nearby park. There are no soup kitchens serving meals on the weekends in our neighborhood, so this is a crucial service for our neighbors in need.

• Soup Kitchen — The fourth Sunday of every month, CHPC prepares hot meals in our church kitchen that we deliver to the Church of the Brethren meals to our community’s homeless.

• Shelter Project — One month a year, CHPC opens its own doors to host up to two homeless families that are involved in an established program designed to help them attain independence and self-sufficiency. As the host church, we provide lodging and meals for the entire month at the church. Church members take turns providing meals and staying with the families.

• Habitat for Humanity — CHPC members occasionally participates in Habitat for Humanity’s home building projects.

• Hearts and Hammers — CHPC members occasionally participate in Hearts and Hammers’ home building and repair projects.

• Painting Neighborhood School — CHPC members occasionally assist with neighborhood efforts to paint and repair neighborhood schools.

• Capitol Hill Group Ministry — Provides emergency assistance, shelter program, and family resource center for the homeless. Capitol Hill Presbyterian Church participates in many of their projects including the Congregational Based Shelter Project, annual walk for the homeless, and was instrumental in creation of Shirley’s Place a day hospitality center for social services.

Past National and International Mission Projects:

2006 Mission Trip – The Presbytery of South Alabama hosted 15 members and friends of CHPC to help reconstruct the home of a family in Bayou La Batre which was devastated by hurricane Katrina.

• 2003 Mission Trip – Almost 30 CHPC members and friends were involved in the August 2003 trip to the Western Maryland Appalachian Mountains where we worked with the Nails Mission Project, Inc., of Cumberland, Maryland. CHPC volunteers did home repair for two elderly area residents.

• 2002 Mission Trip – CHPC members and friends traveled to Tijuana, Mexico in August 2002 to work with Pueblos Hermanos, a program of the Presbyterian Border Ministry, on renovating a church at the Dios Es Amor Mission in the La Plancie neighborhood.

Washington Seminar Center (WSC)

The WSC was established in 1978 by Capitol Hill Presbyterian Church as a ministry to the nation. With over 1,200 daytime and overnight guests annually, the WSC offers seminars, meeting, and housing space to groups who visit the nation’s capital. Groups can either arrange their own projects or let the WSC arrange everything for them. All WSC programming can be customized to suit a group’s special interests.

The WSC’s social justice programs are designed to provide relief to the needy and homeless on a local level. Additionally, we focus on social justice in a national and international context by offering peacemaking seminars and interfaith dialogue seminars that are presented by well-known guest speakers with Christian, Islamic, and Jewish backgrounds.
For more information about the WSC visit www.washingtonseminarcenter.org, or call 202-547-8676.