March 2012:  Pennies for Patients

In December, GPCS Jr High School collected canned goods for The Root Cellar. GPCS Grades 1-3 went Christmas Caroling to our neighbors.

In April, GPCS High School Students (grades 9-12) went to The Root Cellar in Portland.  The students spent the day serving The Root Cellar. 

In March, All GPCS Students participated in "Pennies for Patients."  This program collects pennies to help patients in their battle with leukemia or lymphoma. This year GPCS students collected $288 in pennies! Praise the Lord!

2010

GPCS sends $837.74! All student’s at Greater Portland Christian School are working on a sharing project this Christmas season. The student’s are collecting money for The Children’s Home in India. The purpose of The Children’s Home is “Saving Children, Nurturing Character, Building Leaders." The mission is to see underprivileged children, especially leprosy-affected communities, cared for, educated and morally nurtured to become well adjusted in today’s world as living witnesses of our Lord Jesus Christ. The Children’s Home was started in 1945 (by Dr. John Taylor and is wife, Elizabeth) with 12 boys and enrollment as of July 2010 is 477 of boys and girls, mostly children of leprosy-affected parents.

The values this ministry strives towards are:

• Devotion to the Lord Jesus Christ, who touched the bodies and lives of those considered to be unclean.
• Spiritual & moral values taught in the Holy Bible.
• Love for children.
• Acceptance of all that is noble in the local culture.
• Simple, disciplined life and hard work.
• Respect for the dignity of all human beings created in God’s image.
• Spirit of forgiveness & reconciliation.

GPCS is blessed to give back to the Lord who is so gracious!

Greater Portland Christian School gives back to the community! Last month (November), GPCS student’s in grades K-5 held a food drive for the South Portland Food Cupboard. They invited the whole school to participate in collecting canned items, box items, etc.

Once the food was delivered, the food cupboard invited our elementary students to come at Christmas time, sing carols and hand out candy canes with the gospel message. So students from GPCS will be there soon to bring tidings of joy to families needing help with feeding their families this Christmas. May God be glorified!

2009

North Carolina Mission Trip

Report

Reflections

Grades K-5: Collected new pajamas as part of Scholastic Books Program. Grade 9: Participated in the "Walk for Life" with ABBA - A Women's Resource Center. Grades 6-8: Collected pencil boxes for an orphanage in India with Grace Orphan Fellowship (ministry of GPCS alumnus). Grades 9-12: Raised money by selling nachos to send Becky Wiggins (GPCS alumnus) to Mexico Medical Missions. Grades K-5: Collected 100 cans for the 100th Day of School for the South Portland Food Cupboard.

2006-2007

Pinwheels for National Foster Care Month
Several classes made pinwheels in a project to call awareness to the over 2,100 Maine children in Foster Care.  These were "planted" in Payson Park on May 12 during National Foster Care Month.

Guatemala Mission Trip 
Our high school Spanish students are planning to travel to Guatemala over spring break. They will partner with Mission Impact. Mission Impact works solely in Guatemala, matching Servant Teams with established national ministries such as Christian schools, child sponsorship, community health and nutrition, training rural church leaders, basic technology to provide clean water, etc. Students will work in teams with the local people at various sites during the week there. Some teams may even get to spend a night in Guatemalan homes.

Katrina Food Drive
GPCS families donated over 300 pounds of food in partnership with Southcoast Community Church.  The food was delivered to Lakeshore Baptist Church in Mississippi.

100 Cans of Food for The Root Cellar
To celebrate 100 days of school, several elementary classes worked together to collect 100 cans of food for The Root Cellar.  Great Job!

Scholastic Book Program - Our 6th Graders Read Books and Needy Children Get Books
Grade 6 read 100 books! There are only 7 students and they read 100 books before Thanksgiving! Scholastic Books will reward Grade 6 by sending books to needy children.

Pictures available at:

Habitat for Humanity
In December, Grades 7 and 8 will spend time working in the workshop of Habitat for Humanity. Projects could include building walls, shelves, and more for an upcoming worksite. Also in April, Grade 12 spent a day working on a house being built with Habitat for Humanity.

First Graders "Adopt A Book" for Soldiers Serving in Iraq
Our First Graders wrote to 15 soldiers serving in Iraq. Both these letters and the soldiers' responses will be published in a book. GPCS families are able to "adopt a book" to send to soldiers serving in Iraq. This is coordinated through an alumnus of GPCS, David DeRienzo. To learn more, visit the Snuggly webpage.

2005-2006

WMSJ's Christmas Wish & Spreading Holiday Cheer
Sponsored a family with the "Christmas Wish" program with WMSJ Christian Radio. Also several Elementary classes sang at a local nursing home.

Samaritans Purse
Junior High students participated.

Animal Refuge League
Grade 6 brought donations for pets.
 
Katrina Relief
The whole school collected goods.

2004-2005

Pictures available at: View students comments.

Lake Placid, NY
Mr. Marston, Andy Marston, Jeff Sparks, and Zach Taylor arrived in Lake Placid Sunday evening. They were surprised by their accommodations- they were awesome! They were staying at the Word of Life Inn and Retreat Center. The group spent time cleaning carpets, ripping up old carpets, and renovating a cabin. It was not, however, all work for this group. They also enjoyed an airplane ride to view the Adirondack area, bobsledding, and more. This group returned to South Portland on Friday.

Pictures available at: View students comments.

Nicaragua
E-mail Update #1: March 14 - We made it! We have gone from a foot of new snow to 90ish degrees. We are heading to the camp later this morning. We are not sure how exactly we will fit 62 bags into our bus plus the whole group. We will be roofing a house for a family as well as painting and working around the camp. Wednesday and Thursday, we will be having kids down to camp and run a program for them.

E-mail Update #2:March 15 - Yesterday we drove through the community of the dump which is certainly an eye opening experience to see. The smells are not easily described, they are strong and bad and combined with the things we were seeing it makes quite an impact. We stopped to look at the house we will be reproofing, 14 people live inside. The mother has been adopting kids off the street in Managua. We were able to take some time to enjoy the beach and lake once we were at camp to cool off. Afterwards, we broke up into groups with some working on the projects and some went to the villages to hand out New Testaments.

E-mail Update #3:March 21- We had 50 kids at camp. We all had a blast playing with them. We split the kids into 5 different groups and each group participated in 6 different activities during the day with swimming at the end. The last activity of the week was a huge game of kick ball: boys versus girls (the girls won). When Caryn Hasbrouck was asking the children in one group what their favorite part about camp was, most of the kids said swimming or the food. But one boy (about 11 years old) told her how happy he was about hearing new Bible stories. She then asked him if he was going to share Jesus with others, and he answered "Of Course!"

The group returned to South Portland on Monday (a day later than expected)

Operation Christmas Child
Several elementary classes participated in Operation Christmas Child by filling shoeboxes.

The Root Cellar
Several high school classes adopted families associated with The Root Cellar to provide Christmas gifts, food, etc. Several elementary classes collect baby items for families too.

2003-2004

Mission Trip to Mexico
GPCS students studying Spanish participated in the trip to work at the Wycliffe Mission.

Habitat for Humanity
High School students work at a Habitat for Humanity worksite.

Preble Street Soup Kitchen
High school grades collected food for the Preble Street Soup Kitchen.