Serve & Advocate

We Serve and We Advocate

We respond to God’s call to partner in the work of making this world a more just and loving place locally and globally.

We serve

We organize resources and initiate responses to needs as they arise in our local community through:

First Parish Church Community Service Desk provides direct assistance to members of the local community: from bus tickets and rental assistance to clothing and household goods, and helps pave the way for individuals and families to work with other agencies.

First Parish Church Thrift Shop In 1992 First Parish Church purchased the former drug store on the corner of Central and Silver Streets. Since that time, the building has provided space for many outreach services to our community including our Thrift Shop.

The Dover Food Pantry came into existence in 1979 as an outgrowth of the First Parish Church food pantry housed in the building. The Dover Food Pantry is now supported through Dover Cooperative Ministries.

Grab and Go Summer Food Program is hosted at First Parish Church and provides bags of healthy foods for those children and families who live with food insufficiency. Run entirely by volunteers, Grab and Go now serves over 400 children at 15 sites in Dover each summer.

Community Organizations that First Parish currently partners with:

• Dover Adult Learning Center

• Hyder Hospice House

• Friendly Kitchen

• End 68 Hours of Hunger

• Dover Children’s Home

• My Friend’s Place

• Dover Share

We advocate

We make public our Open and Affirming Covenant by welcoming into the full life of our church persons of all sexual orientations, gender identities and gender expressions, and through our community engagement.

We Welcome the Stranger through our commitment to offer educational opportunities and engage in interfaith relationships, share our resources with those who are resettling in our area and those seeking asylum, and stand witness with other organizations on behalf of the vulnerable among us.

We Tend to the Earth by educating ourselves, reflecting our understanding through practices in our church buildings, and linking arms in the work of environmental justice with other organizations.

Through Special Financial Collections we support global partnerships to address immediate and long-term needs and injustices. We are a Five for Five church of the United Church of Christ contributing to: Our Churches Wider Mission, Neighbors in Need, Strengthen the Church, One Great Hour of Sharing, Christmas Fund.

Zimbabwe Relief We partner through a long-standing relationship with the Highfield Church in Zimbabwe.