FSC T-Shirts!!!
Taking orders now for fall! Wear your FSC proudly doing service, (or just out and about), in our community! Order your FSC t-shirt today and be dressed with the best. Shirts are only $10 each and can be ordered in almost any size. Choose from all six of our District colors, (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple). Pre-ordered shirts will be available and may be paid for when picked up, beginning September 12th. To place your t-shirt order, please contact Paula Roelands at either (616) 459-8386 ext. 225 or
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
with your name, size, and color preference.
Grand River Clean-Up
September 18th
9:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m.
A lot of fun and a little exercise together as we promote water sustainability and a clean environment, (last year 47,000 lbs. of trash and debris was collected)! Best for ages 4 and up, (little ones need parental supervision though). You can make your reservations now or very early in September.
Beyond Sunday District Fair
September 19th
Join us and enjoy some light district-themed, (i.e. "colorful"), munchies while you meet your District Leaders. From social events to church and social justice activities, learn more about what is coming up for you to be a part of in your District.
ACCESS County-Wide Food Drive
October 9th
10:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m.
This year we will be helping pick up food donations in the community, as well as helping sort and box food collected at a downtown location. All ages can participate, with young ones working alongside parents, grandparents, couples, singles, and youth.
What is Beyond Sunday Shared Ministry?
A volunteer and service/justice coordination program for Fountain Street Church, providing opportunities for Fountain Streeters of all ages and abilities to give of their own particular gifts, and to nourish their spiritual growth by reaching out to their community. This would include three categories: Action toward a Personal level, Church community action, and the Local/Beyond Local Community Action.
The membership is divided approximately by zip codes into six DISTRICTS, identified by different colors. On Sunday mornings you can easily identify which district members live in by the color of their nametag sleeve. Each district has between one and four leaders, who coordinate the activities and facilitate the ministry work within their district, such as contacting people to provide meals to a member who just lost a loved one, or sending cards and providing rides to someone recovering from surgery. Other things Beyond Sunday districts are commonly involved in are:
- District-wide Potlucks
- Church Work Days
- Gatherings that create small group relationships
- Social/service oriented activities and outings (local benefit walks, working in food pantries, soup lunches, helping at memorials, providing crisis support to others in the church community, etc)
- Giving Trees - for staff, church community, local charities, schools for supplies and school libraries, etc)
- Aligning each Fountain Streeter with several individualized opportunities to 'plug in' to something that gives them joy, fills that empty space, and utilizes their gifts to provide for the world in some way.
How Do I "Connect" with Beyond Sunday?
To read the latest for your district, just click on the link at the upper right, and move your mouse over your appropriate district color link.
Call Paula Roelands, Beyond Sunday coordinator at church at 459-8386 ext. 225 or E-mail her at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it to express your interest in being involved.
Sustainability Tips:
As part of our Beyond Sunday District Fair, we asked fellow FSC folks to share some of the ways they make a difference with sustainability. District leaders are coming up with ways for each district to make environmental impact through group challenges and efforts. We are willing to bet you are doing at least one of these yourself, and we hope you will be inspired to explore at least one NEW way toward improving our environment and sustainability as we move into a traditionally high energy use season:
1. I ride my bike almost everywhere and use the bus weekly.
2. I grew some of my own vegetables and herbs in my backyard and porch - and most of them survived and I enjoyed the best fresh salads!
3. We close our blinds and windows on hot days, then open windows and run fans at night for an hour to cool things off instead of running air conditioning all day and night.
4. I bought organic chicken once this summer. Expensive? Yes, but the taste was worth it and now I am thinking of just eating chicken less often and spending the same amount on the more healthy sustainable range-raised meat.
5. We participate in the every other week pick-up of our recycling of newspapers, junk mail, plastics, glass, and metal - we used to have 2-3 large bags of trash each week and now we only have one or less!
6. We bought and electric re-chargeable lawn mower this summer.
7. I try to walk at least once per week to someplace I would have normally driven before.
8. We carpool for school with neighbors.
9. We use natural cleaners with few or no chemicals and pump sprayers instead of aerosols.
10. We keep our heat turned down to 68 during the day and 58 at night or when we're gone all day.
11. We put pipe insulation on our hot water pipes, weather-stripping on our old doors and windows, and water saving connectors on our faucets and showerheads.
12. I ride my bike or walk to my friend's house.
13. We turn off lights when we leave the room or the house.
14. I compost all of my non-meat food waste and use it to mulch my landscape.
15. We take our catalogs and newspapers to the school PaperGator bin - it gets recycled into insulation and the school gets paid for it too!
Our Church Building:
Though most of our recent improvements were for fire safety, many help to decrease our environmental impact. For instance, our newer exterior doors are more efficient in their R value rating, and also in their ability to seal out the weather with improved fit and weatherstripping. We have also had a significant decrease in our heating costs this year primarily due to the sale of the steam plant and preventative HVAC maintenance. We have replaced a number of less efficient heating components with newer more efficient ones and now contract routine quarterly maintenance which has improved our heating efficiency. As part of the life safety product, we upgrade a lot of our less efficient electrical services boxes and components which will hopefully yield savings in the future. We will continue to work with both efficiency and environmental sustainability in our upcoming improvements to the building facilities and use.