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IOCC Parish Representatives – June 2008 Elder Ephraim of Philotheou on almsgiving: Have you noticed how God glorifies the merciful? An angel of the Lord appeared to Cornelius the centurion and said to him: “Your alms and prayers have come up for a memorial before God (Acts 10:4).” Likewise the Prophet Daniel said to the King: “O King, atone for your sins by alms and for your iniquities by compassion for the poor (Dan 4:24).” Please pray for our volunteers and events in the following cities this month: June 8th — Oklahoma City — 2nd Annual Dinner (visit www.iocc.org/oklahoma for more info) June 11th — New York — Global Initiatives Reception (visit www.iocc.org/newyork for more info) Visit www.iocc.org/events for further details. June Parish Bulletin Announcements Please encourage your friends, family and parishioners to volunteer in the Gulf Coast from now through the end of July, 2008. Click here to download the Gulf Coast Ad Slick. We are also continuing to recruit Parish Representatives. Click here to download the Parish Representative Ad Slick. JUNE VOLUNTEER ANNOUNCEMENTS Parish festival season is right around the corner, and what better way to raise awareness about IOCC among your attendees than with an IOCC table? Stock your table with various IOCC informational materials. Please go to www.iocc.org/materials to save IOCC money and download materials, or request materials through www.iocc.org/materialsrequest or by calling toll free 1.877.803.4622. Promote IOCC’s memorial/honor gifts program, just in time for graduation season! Contributions to IOCC can be made in lieu of gifts for baptisms, birthdays, weddings, graduations, funerals and other occasions. For more information, please visit www.iocc.org/giving If you are interested in assembling any emergency kits this summer, please visit www.iocc.org/kits. At the moment Baby Kits and Emergency Clean-up buckets are the kits in greatest need. For those of you attending the Clergy Laity Conference July 13th-17th, IOCC would like to invite you and anyone else interested in volunteering to IOCC to a gathering to meet other volunteers from around the country Tuesday, July 15th in the evening. Please RSVP to let us know if you will be attending. You can now view the 2008 video Respond, Rebuild, Renew at www.iocc.org or on www.youtube.com. Pre-order copies of the 2008-2009 prayer journals which will be available in August. Use the order form found here to order single copies. To order in bulk please contact the Department of Religious Education of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America at 1.800.566.1088. METROPOLITAN COMMITTEE REQUEST Please set the date(s) of your events you plan to have in your area during 2008 by June 15th. As many of you know, most of the work will not be necessary to complete until three months prior to the event, but parish calendars fill up fast. Setting the date is the most important part. VOLUNTEER ACTIVITY OF THE MONTH On April 19th, children and adults from St. George in Clifton, New Jersey gathered to assemble 100 hygiene kits at their first IOCC religious retreat. “The IOCC teaches you to open up your heart,” said Tina Janulis, one of the church school students who participated in the retreat and making the health care kits. “One important thing that many of us learned about IOCC is that there are many different ways to get involved, even if you don’t have a whole lot of free time,” said Nick Janulis. For further details, please visit our Faith In Action here. A COMMUNITY COMES TOGETHER More than 21,500 school kits were delivered to Damascus, Syria in support of IOCC’s program to assist Iraqi refugees and disadvantaged Syrians. Betty Kurkjian encouraged family and friends to show support for her son, Bob Kurkjian, a US Navy Officer, by sending donations to IOCC. Betty, a longtime volunteer with IOCC’s Orange County Metropolitan Committee, collected $4,600, which was used to pay the shipping costs of the school kits to Damascus, where Bob’s grandmother had once lived as a refugee. Bob served in Iraq as an Operations Officer helping to manage equipment and property, as well as hazardous waste removal throughout the country. He is back home in Washington D.C., awaiting his next deployment to Iraq. ETHIOPIA – Country of the Month In a country where 77 million people are members of the Ethiopian Orthodox church and 1.2 million children have become orphans due to their parents dying of AIDS, IOCC recently sent 100,000 English and K-12 textbooks in addition to expanding its work providing HIV/AIDS education from 20 to 30 Dioceses. The expansion will now include care to people with the disease including home based care and additional start-up capital for people to have their own businesses. Visit www.iocc.org/ethiopia to learn more about IOCC’s recent activity in Ethiopia!