Churches Celebrated Their Similarities During Weekend-Long ShareFest

This year’s Greater Danbury ShareFest was celebrated over the May 6-7 weekend. Following a model created seven years ago in Arkansas, the greater Danbury event continues to consist of three components — work projects, a collection of material goods and opportunities to donate blood, toys and register for bone marrow and organ donation, and an evening community celebration service.

This year, a total of 43 churches pooled their people, resources, and financial support to help clear brush, plant gardens, paint buildings and put up new fences, among other projects.

“Over 50 residents [benefited from] the help of 1,200 volunteers coordinated by area churches focusing on their similarities, rather than their differences, in hoping to share the love of God in practical ways,” said the Reverend James A. Solomon, M.Div, pastor of New Hope Community Church, based in Newtown. In addition to New Hope Community Church, Newtown’s Trinity Episcopal Church and Christ the King Lutheran Church also participated in ShareFest.

Saturday was dedicated to service projects across the region. ShareFest covered 37 sites in ten towns including four YMCA centers, two parks, two camps, seven group homes, 11 senior apartment complexes, nine assisted care facilities, and six additional nonprofit organizations including Newtown Senior Center.

Buildings were sided, porches and steps were built, fences were installed, gardens were planted, truckloads of brush were cleared, and houses were cleaned by the volunteers.

Rev Solomon was excited about the amount of volunteerism witnessed during ShareFest. His church enlisted 30 volunteers to clear brush, pull weeds, plant gardens, paint rooms. and put up a fence for Healing Hearts of Danbury, an organization of Regional Hospice of Western Connecticut that serves children and others who have lost loved ones.

“Now more than ever is the time when people truly don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care,” said Rev Solomon. “According to Christ, actions speak louder than words. If we as Christians do not practice what we preach or walk what we talk, then our message is useless to the people of the community in which we live.

“Our desire is to share the love of God with those who may not have always felt loved by God because of the failure of God’s people. As we believe that Christ came not to be served but to serve, we continually hope to do the same in a way that would contribute something positive to a culture that often only sees and hears about the negative,” he continued. “Our hope and prayer was to share the love of God through acts of kindness that might bring a sense of God’s presence, power, peace, and provision to others through Christians finally doing what Christians are supposed to do.”

Members of Christ the King and Trinity Episcopal churches both ended up volunteering labor at Glen Apartments in Danbury and at Newtown Senior Center in Sandy Hook. Rick Natalie and Martha Dayton organized the volunteers from Trinity who worked in Danbury and Sandy Hook, while Susan Ruscoe, also a member of the Episcopal Church, coordinated the blood donations from fellow members.

At the apartment complex, volunteers spent time weeding and cleaning up gardens. “We did a little bit of everything,” Trinity member Carolyn Legg said.

In weeks leading up to ShareFest, members of Trinity were also asked to consider donating toys, coats, baby diapers and clothing, and nonperishable food. Three large boxes were set up in the church’s vestibule, “and they were filled to overflowing,” Ms Legg said. “We have no idea how many people donated for those collections, but between those donors and the people who volunteered on Saturday, we represented a large percentage of people from our church,” she added.

For Christ the King, working at Glen Apartments was especially meaningful because one of the tenants is a member of the Newtown church.

Christ the King had 26 volunteers for Saturday’s projects, the largest number of whom spent the day at Glen Apartments.

“We did some landscaping and gardening,” said Pastor Greg Wismar. “One of the neat things for us was that one of our parishioners lives there. We did some garden work right outside her door. A few years ago she created a small garden, but it had gotten away from her recently.

“We attended to her garden, pulling a lot of bittersweet and barberries, and it looks like it should again,” Pastor Wismar said.

Both church groups joined residents of the apartment building for lunch, completing their meals with homemade cookies baked by members of Trinity Church.

Sunday saw a Festival of Giving at Danbury High School followed by an evening Celebration Service at Western Connecticut State University’s O’Neill Center. Coats for the homeless, food for food pantries, toys for needy tots, blood for the American Red Cross, and an organ and bone marrow donor registry will all benefit area groups who registered in advance. Additionally, Sunday’s event included an Amber Alert Child ID Registry, health screenings, tick removal kits, and an Agency Volunteer Fair. On Sunday afternoon, there was a “Festival of Giving” at Danbury High School that included a blood drive, bone marrow registry, Amber Alert Child ID Registry, Health Screening, Tick Removal Kits, Organ Donor Education, and an Agency Volunteer Fair.

An offering taken during Sunday evening’s service was to be donated to several local preselected charities including Harmony House, The Women’s Center of Greater Danbury and The Families Network of Western Connecticut.

ShareFest was created by a small group of pastors in Little Rock, Ark., who wanted to find a way for the church to build a bridge from the church to the community. The first ShareFest was celebrated in November 1999 in Little Rock, and it was a joint service and worship event. Fellowship Bible Church in Little Rock has remained committed since that time to teaching other churches and communities how to conduct a successful ShareFest.

The sponsoring organization for Greater Danbury ShareFest is Mission Danbury, which is composed of a cross section of Christian churches, and has sponsored events such as the Luis Palau Festival, several Christian rock concerts, and Housatonic Valley Leadership Prayer breakfast.

The purpose of ShareFest, according to Mission Danbury, is four fold: to meet real needs within the community, much as Jesus Christ did throughout His ministry; to unite the churches in the community; to demonstrate the love of Jesus Christ; and to provide a foundation of relationship and community to nurture and grow throughout the year between local churches and those in need.

The first ShareFest in New England occurred in 2004 in the greater Danbury area.