1. The School Supply Project 2. First Presbyterian Delivers 3. Summer Worship at First Church 4. Gardening in a Bucket for Kids 5. Advocacy Spotlight 6. Justice Conference Scholarships 2. First Presbyterian Delivers 3. Summer Worship at First Church 1. The School Supply Project No. 2 pencils (sharpened if possible) Pencil sharpeners Pencil pouches Pencil boxes, plas- c 2” pink erasers Pens — blue or black ink Crayons — box of 24 Colored markers Colored pencils Dry-erase markers Yellow highlighters Glue scks & Glue boles School scissors * 1-subject spiral notebooks — wide-ruled and col- lege-ruled Hard-cover 3-ring binders, 1” or 1½” Notebook paper, wide-ruled Notebook paper , college-ruled Marble composi- on books — wide-ruled and college-ruled 12” Rulers Pocket folders 3” Scky-back notes Backpacks Calculators * = Items especially needed. FOCUS School Supply Collecon has begun! We will gratefully receive contribu- ons of new school supplies through the last week in August. (Item List Below) Donaon Drop-Off From Monday, August 18 through Thursday, August 21st, bring them to the First Unitarian Universalist Society of Albany, 405 Washington Avenue, from 9 a.m. to 12 noon. Donaons If you wish to contribute money in lieu of supplies, please make your check out to FOCUS and mark it “FOCUS School Supplies.” Send it to FOCUS, 275 State Street, Albany, NY 12210. Volunteers First Unitarian Universalist Society has graciously offered to provide our collecon and distribuon point in August. Volunteers will be needed on Aug. 26-29 to sort donaons and distribute them to the children. To volunteer or for more informaon, please contact Becca Leet at 443-0460 or bec- [email protected]. 4. Gardening in a Bucket for Kids Gardening in a Bucket Project has now exceeded the reach of 100 parcipants! Last week, FOCUS went “on the road” to a local shelter and urban day camp to drum up excitement about growing veggies. Kids (and some parents) parcipat- ed in the combined art & gardening acvity. They decorated their own planters and then planted a choice of a pepper or tomato seedling. Each new gardener was given advice on how to maintain and grow a plant successfully. This is a key project of FOCUS efforts to engage in food empowerment acvies within our community. FOCUS Churches of Albany 275 State St. Albany NY 12210 518.443.0460 www.focuschurches.net Like Tweet On Monday, July 7, First Presbyterian Church delivered a whole truckload (500 lbs/650 items) of nonperishable food items to the FOCUS Interfaith Food Pantry. The items were collected by Presbyterian youth, from around the country, who were here in Albany for a Work Camp. Thank you to all who made this donaon possible—the organizers, youth and adults of the summer work camp, and the delivery crew. We are so very grateful on behalf of all of our neighbors who will benefit from these food items. The first of the FOCUS Summer Worship series happened this past Sunday at First Church in Albany. Thank you to our hosts at First Church and to all who aended. REV. JOHN PAARLBERG AT THE FIRST CHURCH SERVICE, ABOVE LEFT. ABOVE RIGHT, A PARTICIPANT OF THE FOCUS PHOTO PETITION TO PROTECT CHILD NUTRITION PROGRAMS. Next FOCUS Summer Worship, Aug. 3 Delmar Reformed Church • 10 AM 386 Delaware Ave. (pick-up choir gathers at 9:15 am) 5. Advocacy Spotlight Raise the Wage for Tipped Workers! Last year, when legislaon that will raise the minimum wage in New York from $7.25 per hour to $9.00 by the end of 2015 was passed, a large sector of workers were excluded from the raise. Tipped workers – restaurant servers and hotel workers – were leſt with a frozen minimum wage of just $5.00 per hour. This past Wednesday, FOCUS parcipated in a kick of to the campaign to raise the wage for pped workers to be 100% of the minimum wage. Learn more about this issue. Resources from Interfaith Worker Jusce Campaign to End Childhood Hunger: FOCUS Photo Peon Many of you parcipated in FOCUS’ Photo Peon, “SNAP Works!” last year. Due to its success, we have launched a new photo peon with the goal of ending childhood hunger leading up to the Child Nutrion Reauthorizaon in 2015. We will use our voices to ensure access to food for children by streamlining enroll- ment by schools and removing barriers to school meals for all. Please parcipate in this photo peon! Your voice is needed. The next photo peon opportunity will be: August 3rd at Delmar Reformed Church. Above: Daniel Mensah of FOCUS and Stephanie Kite of First Presbyterian Church 6. Jusce Conference Scholarships On August 2 and 3, 2014 hundreds of New Yorkers who fight for jusce will join together. Regardless of the issues you work on, or how you work on them: if you’re an organizer, a volunteer, a door knocker, a blogger, a policy wonk, or all of these things – Jusce Works is the conference for you. Click here to visit the Jusce Works Conference web site & register. For all friends of FOCUS: The Labor Religion Coalion is offering scholarships for registraon! Contact Joe Paparone of the Labor Religion Coalion if you are inter- ested in aending. Key Note Speaker, Imani Perry Naonally renowned scholar on racial jusce and Professor of African American Studies at Princeton University.