Are you preparing for the winter? Have your kids outgrown last year’s coats? Are there coats in your closet that aren’t being used? Here is a great opportunity to share the warmth – when you donate a warm coat, you help warm someone’s heart! St. John’s is participating in the 20th Annual Coats for Kids drive by Anton’s Cleaners. All you have to do is drop off the coats on the weekends of November 8-9 and 15-16, and we will take care of the rest.
What Type of Coats? Warm coats of all sizes for babies, children, teens, and adults in good quality with no rips, tears, broken zippers or permanent stains – coats you would give to a friend. (Click on the image above for more details.)
When/Where Do We Drop Off Coats? After all Masses on the weekends of November 8-9 and November 15-16 in the Rectory garage (behind the church.)
Questions? Please contact Shilan Yeung (781-237-2612) or Deirdre Heilbron (617-894-4416)
The St. John Christmas Wish Committee invites new members to join us for this special work of filling Christmas wishes for many children in the surrounding communities of Roxbury, Lowell, Brockton, and Wellesley. We will gather over 400 children’s requests and fulfill them through the generosity of our St. John community families through sponsorship, shopping and donations. Help us as a parish coordinator assistant, data entry assistant, or phone helper making follow-up calls to St. John volunteers. To join our committee, please contact Liz Corcoran at 
As temperatures drop it’s time to think about cleaning out your coat closets for the annual Coats for Kids collection, organized by Anton’s Cleaners. We are collecting coats of all sizes for children, teens, adults and babies. Please be sure they are of good quality with no rips, tears, broken zippers or permanent stains. We will be collecting the coats in the Rectory garage during the first two weekends in November: the 2nd/3rd and the 9th/10th. Any questions? Please call Deirdre Heilbron at 617-894-4416.
The driver who did the pick up from St. Francis House told us that he’s been doing this for 17 years, and when he started he went to 120+ churches. Now he’s down to 25 or so, with the volume of donations at many trending down. However, he said that St. John’s has shown the reverse trend, with increasing donations of the highest quality clothing, which their clients so appreciate, especially as they try to return to the work force. Our volume increase about 30%-40% from last year’s collection. We achieved this as a community! 
The Christmas Wish 2012 Committee would like to thank each one of you who generously donated time, contributions, shopping efforts, coordination of parish family needs, data entry, attending meetings, bundling packages, matching gifts to families, and many tireless efforts to make Christmas special for over 300 children in our community. We worked with 118 families and 312 children in St. Patrick’s in Brockton, St. Patrick’s in Lowell, St. Katharine Drexel in Roxbury, Julie’s Family Learning Program in South Boston, and St. John the Evangelist in Wellesley to provide gifts of clothing, toys, special gift wishes,and even food cards to make the holiday special for so many.
Over 220 St. John families helped with this effort by family sponsorship, shopping, financial donations, program co-ordination, religious ed community service, and gift delivery. We extend a special thanks to McCabe Movers for their donation of the truck for gift delivery again this year. We thank Bill Logan and Steve DuFour and his son for volunteering to deliver the gifts to Lowell and Roxbury. (Check out the 
Thank you so much for your support! St. John’s has donated over 200 coats for two consecutive years and that makes a big difference in our annual coat drive. Our distribution partners in your area include the Wellesley Housing Authority, Circle of Hope (Needham), and The Second Step (Newtonville). After the coats have been cleaned at Anton’s Wellesley location, the distribution partners pick up however many coats they need. This is our 18th year of Coats for Kids and we appreciate all that St. John the Evangelist has donated along the way!
Hope is not about moving mountains.