Outreach

The purpose of Doors of Hope Transition Ministries includes, but is not limited to, guiding homeless families and at-risk homeless families in Lafayette County, Mississippi toward self-reliance and stability through a holistic individualized approach that includes life-skills training, mentoring, and supportive housing. FPC currently provides office and meeting space for the DOH staff and clients.

Interfaith Compassion Ministry (ICM) assists individuals and families through crisis situations by providing for their basic needs: food, shelter, utilities, medications, and transportation. ICM is our community’s primary agency that assists homeless people by providing counseling, temporary housing, food, and stabilization in new living arrangements. The United Way of Oxford & Lafayette County helps fund ICM’s Homeless Client Assistance and Indigent Client Assistance programs. The Homeless Client Assistance program provides for the basic needs of homeless individuals, including but not limited to counseling, food, temporary housing, and ultimately, safe, affordable residences. The Indigent Client Assistance program seeks to assist local families with basic needs (rent, utilities, food, medical care, transportation to jobs, etc.), help stabilize them, prevent homelessness, and provide counseling, which may include prioritizing financial decisions.

Oxford Medical Ministries Clinic is a private, nonprofit, community based organization that provides compassionate, quality healthcare at no charge to low income, uninsured working adults of Lafayette and Yalobusha counties in Mississippi. The donations of individuals, businesses and churches in the greater Oxford community have made possible the treatment of over 700 patients without any government funding.

Truly a community sponsored charity, the Oxford Christmas Store has been providing toys to deserving Lafayette County children for 40 years. It’s not unusual for our club to provide toys, books and fresh fruit to over 700 children in the Lafayette County area. The Christmas Store was started at First Presbyterian Church and later became a service project of the Oxford Rotary Club. To find out more check out the Oxford Rotary Club’s website.

The Pantry is a not-for-profit, community-wide organization that has, since 1982 been providing food on an emergency basis for eligible residents in Oxford and Lafayette County, Mississippi. Volunteers who represent churches, civil clubs or individuals staff the Pantry. It is the Pantry’s objective to involve a broad base of support throughout the community and to publicize the work of the organization so that families in need will know how to apply for essential food supplies.

Memory Makers is a respite day care, primarily serving adults in our community who are affected by memory loss due to dementia by offering: respite, socialization, counseling, education and information.

More Than a Meal helps needy women, children and men in Oxford to get back on their feet by providing: nutritious meals served in a courteous manner in a pleasant environment; educational tutoring to school age children; and essential toiletries needed for health. Volunteers from FPC provide and serve the meal three times each year.

Lovepacks provides supplemental food for school-age children in need on weekends and holidays. Students are identified by their teacher or school counselor and a supply of nutritional food is slipped into their backpacks at the end of each school week.

Holding Hands is a resale shop which employs persons with special needs in a safe environment with the hope of helping them achieve independence and self-respect. Donations of good, used clothing and household items are always appreciated.

Founded in 2010, the Collegiate Recovery Community (CRC) at the University of Mississippi is a community of support designed to help students in recovery from addiction achieve their academic goals. The community establishes an academic and social support system to address the unique challenges recovering students face in a collegiate environment. Together, recovering students have an increased opportunity to excel academically while maintaining long-term recovery.

Leap Frog provides reading intervention tutoring and enrichment activities to first, second and third grade from Oxford and Lafayette public schools.

Oxford/Lafayette Homeless Initiative

Exchange provides a variety of public awareness materials, designed to help inform and increase awareness of child abuse and how it can be prevented. These are used in conjunction with Exchange Clubs and Exchange Club Child Abuse Prevention Centers.

Camp Hopewell is a year-round ministry of the Presbytery of St. Andrew, PC(USA). Located in the midst of the Holly Springs National Forest about 5 miles east of Oxford, MS, Hopewell offers a full summer camp schedule and hosts retreats and conferences throughout the year for all ages and types of groups. Camp Hopewell is accredited by the American Camp Association. Find out more at www.camphopewell.com

Located in beautiful Western North Carolina, Montreat Conference Center is a conference center, a retreat center, a place of worship, a wilderness preserve and so much more. Known best at FPC for the annual Montreat Youth Conference attended by our senior high youth each summer, Montreat offers conferences and events for all ages throughout the year. Check out the website at https://montreat.org.

Presbyterian World Mission has two mission co-workers living and working Haiti who assist our partners in carrying out their missions in this island nation. One works with Joining Hands, a hunger program, and the other serves as an agricultural specialist. In addition to the steady presence of mission co-workers, Presbyterian Disaster Assistance responded to the call for help in Haiti following the 2010 earthquake that struck the capital city of Port au Prince and the surrounding area. The earthquake dealt a devastating blow to what was already one of the most impoverished countries in the Western Hemisphere. We continue to help the country rebuild alongside our partner church, the Episcopal Diocese of Haiti, and other partner organizations. The PC(USA) has been involved in Haiti for many years.