Outreach

Our Mission at Good Shepherd is "Loving People to Jesus" at home, in our community, and in our world. We demonstrate our love for God's people through the areas of care, service, and reaching out to others in Jesus' name. 

Good Shepherd Lutheran Preschool & Kindergarten

For nearly half a century Good Shepherd Lutheran Church has welcomed families to our Christian school. Our faith-based curriculum implemented by our faculty and staff helps your child learn more about our wonderful God and the world He's given us.

Good Shepherd Lutheran Preschool admits students of any race, color, nationality, or ethnic origin to all the rights, privileges, programs, and activities generally accorded or made available to students at the school. It does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, nationality, or ethnic origin in administration of its educational policy, admission policy, and athletic or other school administered programs.

Click Here to Visit Our School Site

Mission Trips

There are many opportunities to serve the Lord in helping those desiring assistance. One way is to physically go to where the help is needed.

Local  Opportunities

Volunteer through Habitat for Humanity Northern Fox Valley in Elgin. They can use volunteers one day at a time building or rebuilding homes for those who need decent housing. These are one day at a time opportunities. They can also use volunteers at the ReStore in Elgin stocking shelves, helping customers, receiving donations, etc. at a minimum of 2 days a month.

Volunteer through the Elgin Police Department in their Community Emergency Response Team (CERT). The CERT program is part of the Federal Emergency Management Agency and this program teaches how to respond when disaster happens. A second part is aiding the Elgin Police Department when emergency and special events take place. For example traffic control for parades, the Fox Trot, down power lines, roads that are blocked, and 4th of July fireworks.  More information and training dates are available from Karen Flanagan flanagan_k@cityofelgin.org.  

Northern Illinois Opportunities

Volunteer for local disaster response through Lutheran Church Charities’ Lutheran Early Response Team (LERT). LERT  training is available to assist those in crisis which include flood recovery, property damage, downed tree removal, tornado cleanup.

Contact David Vollrath at d_vollrath@aol.com for the latest information.

LERT responds to a local Lutheran Congregation who is seeking help for their members and their community. Generally the request goes out about a week before help can be used, because sites need to be assessed and permission granted before volunteers can be used. Past call outs have been for flooding (in Cary, Watseka, Coal City), for tornado (in Rochelle, Ottowa, Washington, IL), for assisting with the annual Comfort Dog Conference in Northbrook.  For more information on how you can help, contact David Vollrath at d_vollrath@aol.com.

US Opportunities

Volunteer to travel the first full week in January to southern US with the Chicago Area Mission Partnership (CAMP) to where help is asked for. Good Shepherd has sent teams for each of the last 9 years to New Orleans, Joplin, Baton Rouge, and Houston. CAMP is a group of Lutheran churches from Hawthorn Woods, Crystal Lake to Batavia. Generally in October the destination is announced and the cost is about $350 to travel by car. There are opportunities to build/rebuild and for outreach, which might include manning a food pantry, visiting a nursing home, assisting at a non-for profit warehouse, preparing and delivering lunches to the homeless, etc.  For more information on how you can help, contact David Vollrath at d_vollrath@aol.com.

Outside the US

Thrivent coordinates Thrivent Worldwide Builds with Habitat for Humanity Global Village program. The trips are 8-14 days and for Thrivent members, Thrivent provides $500 of the cost between $2,000 and $5,000 raised by the volunteer. Available Thrivent trips can be reviewed at https://www.thrivent.com/making-a-difference/living-generously/thrivent-builds/join-trip.html.

Haiti Mission - The Republic of Haiti is the poorest nation in the western hemisphere. Throughout its history the Haitian people have suffered from poverty, devastating earthquakes, hurricanes and disease. It’s a beautiful country with beautiful people. It’s also a country in need.

Members from Good Shepherd have been sharing God’s love on mission trips to Jacmel, Haiti since 2011. Working with Ministry in Mission (a 501c3 organization in Ohio) and the First Evangelical Lutheran Church of Jacmel our teams have been involved with many projects. A few of them include helping with the construction of our guesthouse, purchasing and distributing water filters, painting an orphanage, helping out with VBS and working with a school sponsorship program. Each year we attend Sunday church services, visit the orphanage, help out with a feeding program for undernourished children and assemble care packages that we deliver to elderly. Other projects vary from trip to trip as they’re needed. Above all, we share God’s love with each other by being there together.

Are you interested in serving with us? Have questions? Please contact David Vollrath at d_vollrath@aol.com.