Check out this video of  the service project performed by the youth at Lakeview Elementary School

Worldwide Indexing Event - July 20-21, 2014

On July 2, 2012, a total of 49,025 FamilySearch indexers and arbitrators joined together to set the all-time record for the most indexing participants in a single day. That lofty record is about to be broken—by you!

Join volunteers from around the world on July 20 and 21 for an international history-making event!  

The goal? For 50,000 indexers and arbitrators to submit at least one batch in a 24-hour period! Do more if you would like, but one batch is all that is required to be counted in the record!

For more information, please visit this FamilySearch Blog and the Facebook Page.

NOTE: For Central Florida , the event will begin on Sunday, July 20, 2014 at 8:00 PM EDT, and end on Monday, July 21, 2014 at 8:00 PM EDT.

Back to School Service Project - Day of Service 2014

It's that time again for our Day of Service where we have the opportunity to reach out to our community and show them we are here to serve. 

This year we will be doing projects similar to what we did last year for Cypress Park Elementary, however, we will be helping three schools instead of one.  There will be plenty of work so we need as many of our members as possible to show up to help.  Please feel free to invite your families, neighbors, and less active members to help, we welcome anyone who would like to serve. 

Each ward/branch has been assigned to a school and is to report to that school to help at our day of service. We hope to make a large impact at these schools.  Our hope is that we can develop a relationship with these schools, similar to what we have with Cypress Park Elementary, so our members can continue to serve them in different capacities.

We will be collecting specific items for a Supply Drive for each school.  The same items will be collected for all the schools.  Each building has blue collection bins for each item, please bring your items on Sunday and your ward rep will collect them then.

Orlando Florida Hunters Creek Stake
Day of Service 2014
Back to School Service Project

Date: August 2   
Time: 8am to Noon
Locations:

Hunters Creek & Pleasant Hill
Highland's Elementary School
800 W Donegan Ave, Kissimmee

Poinciana & Wetherbee YSA
Chestnut Elementary School
4300 Chestnut St, Poinciana

St. Cloud, Kissimmee & Lake Nona
Lakeview Elementary School
2900 5th St, St Cloud

The following service projects will be done at each school:

* Outdoor landscaping or beautification
* Indoor deep cleaning projects and
* Helping teachers organize, clean, prepare, and decorate their classrooms

Supply Drive (items needed for donation):

• pre-k to adult shoes, any type
• belts
• tissues
• baby wipes
• copy paper

If you have any further questions please contact your ward Public Affairs representative or Bishopric member listed below.

Hunters Creek: Kneil Baron and Jose Toro
Kissimmee: Eric Hansen and Steve Bravato
Lake Nona: Mark Hahn and Missy Wise
Pleasant Hill: Jay Egg and Chad Tucker
Poinciana: Julio Cruz, Scott Dombrowski, Kathleen Kober
St. Cloud: Daniel Munns and Jessica Arrington
Wetherbee YSA: Michael Cajas 

Day of Service 2014

It's time for a Day of Service!  This time we will be helping several schools in our stake boundaries get ready for the next school year.  We will be helping Highlands Elementary, Lakeview Elementary and Chestnut Elementary.

We will be helping to landscape, refresh gardens, assist teachers in setting up their classrooms and much more.  Mark you calendars for August 2.  More details to come. If you have any questions feel free to contact Emily Munns at fernsgr888@aol.com.

Service Opportunity - Book Sorting and Cleaning

Are you in need of volunteer hours, have some extra time to help, or a desire to help children from the age of 5-8 years old improve their reading skills?  Then this is an opportunity for you!

The Osceola County School District is looking for volunteers to help sort and clean over 100,000 books. The book project will give 6 take home books for the summer to all the K to grade 3 students in Osceola County. This is part of a district project to improve reading skills.

A total of 40 pallets of books where purchased and each pallet has 3,000 to 4,000 books that need to be cleaned and sorted.  They are in serious need of volunteers to help with the project.  If you would like to volunteer see the place and times listed below.

Habitat for Humanity Restore
2340 N. Orange Blossom Trail
Kissimmee, FL 34744

Monday - Friday  9:00 AM - 6:00 PM
Saturday  9:00 AM - 4:00 PM
Sunday 12:00 PM - 5:00 PM

For more information or any questions you may have please contact Richard Birmingham at (407) 343-7330.

Hunters Creek Stake awarded Outstanding Partner in Education for service project at Cypress Park Elementary

If there's one thing the members of  The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints  understand, it's service. They believe that serving others is the way to show their love for the Savior and all mankind.

On Friday, May 2, the Hunters Creek and Orlando South Stakes of the church received the Outstanding Partner in Education award for 2013-2014 from the Orange County Public Schools for service projects performed at Palmetto and Cypress Park Elementary schools.

On October 26, 2013 Orange county schools held a day of service for many schools across their district with participants in the Partners in Education program.  The Hunters Creek Stake, which covers southern Orange county and most of Osceola county, organized a service project at Cypress Park Elementary.

In the weeks leading up to the service project, members of the church collected 17 bins of clothing, 18 boxes of books, and put together a teacher supply box for each classroom. On the 26th over 200 people including church members, students, parents, and teachers showed up to the school to beautify the campus.

Participants restored the reading garden by trimming, weeding, planting new plants, laying mulch, and pressure washing the side walks so students could enjoy their reading time in the garden. 

Rocks that covered part of  the parking lot were removed and replaced with pavers and all the lines in the remaining parking lots were repainted.

Lastly, the front of the school and other areas were beautified with new plants, mulch and sod to give the campus a needed restoration.

In the months since the service project the members have continued to build a service relationship with the school and is planning another day of service this summer before the next school year begins.

Click on any of the collages to see the full gallery of pictures from the day of service.

Service Opportunity - Meal Packing Event

According to recent research, nearly 4,000 children in Osceola County are homeless. Additionally, a staggering 30.8 percent of children in Osceola County are “food insecure”.  Osceola Connected, a coalition of various organizations in Osceola County, is hosting a meal packing event on May 3rd & 4th and would love your help in their efforts to reduce the number of children who do not always know where they will find their next meal.  By partnering with Feeding Children Everywhere this coalition is directly providing meals to food pantries throughout Osceola County.

Participants will be hand-packaging 500,000 healthy meals that will be distributed to hungry children throughout Osceola County. There will be great music, good fun and the chance to make a tangible difference in the life of a hungry child.  Donations are also welcome, just $20.00 will feed 80 children.  There are locations in Kissimmee, St. Cloud, and Celebration to volunteer.

Please visit www.osceolaconnected.com for more details and sign up to volunteer or donate now!

Semi-Annual General Women's Meeting & Service Project

On Saturday, March 29 at 5:00pm our stake Relief Society will be hosting a service project before the General Women's Meeting for all women, young women and girls age eight years and older. They will be making chemo hats with a card of encouragement or scripture to be donating to the Osceola Cancer Center. A light meal will be served.

They will also be collecting "nearly new"clothing and personal care items for the sister missionaries.  The mission will use the clothing as one part of a special conference they are having for the sister missionaries.  Please bring your donations that evening to help the sister missionaries.

Following the service project the General Women's Meeting will begin at 8:00pm.  Please come and join us for an evening of service and sisterhood.

Eagle Scout builds fence for a local church

On December 14, Madsen Senden completed his Eagle Scout Service Project by installing a parking lot fence for Iglesia De Dios Pentecostal Church, on Kentucky Ave in St. Cloud. The project consisted of removing an old and dilapidated fence, cleaning up the grounds, and constructing a new fence to divide the parking lot from the surrounding buildings.

The Eagle Scout Service Project is considered to be the most meaningful requirement to becoming an Eagle Scout, the highest rank. A scout is directed to "plan, develop and give leadership to others" in a service project deemed beneficial to a school, religious institution or community. 

It took over 100 hours for Madsen to plan and organize the project.  He oversaw a crew of about 14 younger scouts. His father and other adults also helped. He was responsible for the construction design, collecting the materials, delegating responsibilities and discarding the old wooden fence. 

When asked what he learned most from doing this project Madsen said, "It was incredible how much can be accomplished when you work together as a team. There was a lot more involved than just putting up a fence, the hours of planning and organizing sure paid off. I would still be there if it was not for the support of Troop 294. We came together as a troop."

Volunteers Needed for Emergency Drill

Osceola County Office of Emergency Management will be conducting a mass casualty exercise/disaster drill on March 19, 2014 from 7:00 am – 1:30 pm at Osceola County Emergency Operations Center.  They are looking for volunteers to play the role of victims which will help Osceola County Health Care System, Emergency Services, Department of Health, and Emergency Management test their response plans to a pandemic incident.  If you are interested in participating, please register using the Survey Monkey link below.  Please enter The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints for the organization when you complete the registration.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/OsceolaZ_Volunteer

Osceola County Emergency Operations Center
2586 Partin Settlement Road
Kissimmee, FL 34744

Daily Bread Program - Feed the Homeless

First Baptist Church in Kissimmee sponsors the Daily Bread program which feeds homeless individuals and families in Osceola County at the Osceola Christian Ministry Center in Kissimmee. They arrange for local churches to come once or twice a month to provide a lunch time meal for around 125 people.

Our stake is participating in this program for 2014 and will provide one meal a month for the homeless. Each ward or branch will be assigned 2 months of the year to fulfill this obligation. Each unit will be contacted when it is their turn to provide the meal.
 

We'd like for willing members to provide the food when possible.  Each ward will also need to provide enough volunteers at the Ministry Center to prepare and serve the food, around 6 people from 9:00am -12:30pm. 

Please feel free to contact Emily Munns with any questions, fernsgr888@aol.com.

Then Jesus beholding him loved him, and said unto him, One thing thou lackest: go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, take up the cross, and follow me. - Mark 10:21

Osceola Christian Ministry Center
700 Union Street
Kissimmee, FL 34741

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Cypress Park Elementary Teach-In Event - November 20th

Cypress Park Elementary

Teach-In Event  

Wednesday, November 20, 2013

The event takes place at Cypress Park Elementary during regular school hours, 9am-3pm. They are asking for representatives from various businesses in the community to come to the school and talk to the students about their careers and other activities that they do. What a great opportunity to get to know and to help the students learn all the possibilities they have in this life and help support the school we have adopted!

No one has to commit to the entire day and a schedule of 30 minute intervals is set-up for any volunteer once a time block has established around the individual's availability.  Volunteers will be stationed in one room and students will rotate to them, so any and all presentation equipment will be easily accessed.

Please contact Michael Jennings, Cypress Park Elementary School, at (407) 858-3100 ext 3202246 or Michael.Jennings@ocps.net with any further questions and to schedule your attendance!

Day of Service 2013 - Project Details

The following is a list of projects that will be completed as part of our day of service at Cypress Park Elementary. Each ward has been assigned to a specific project. Some tools and supplies will be needed, please direct any questions to the project leaders listed below.

All able bodies (4 and up) that can work should to go to the school at 9:00 am to help with the projects listed.  Any older members or mothers with small children can help at the stake center at 9:00 am.  Lunch will be served at 12:00 pm at the school. 

The projects and leaders and ward assignments are as follows:

PAVER PROJECT

St. Cloud: Jarom Fertic/Adam Arrington

Kissimmee: Bryan Melick

SCHOOL FRONT BEAUTIFICATION

Pleasant Hill: Chad Tucker

Poinciana: Clark Leishman

BUTTERFLY GARDEN BEAUTIFICATION

Lake Nona: Spencer Meadows

Hunters Creek: Cameron Kober

PARKING LOT PAINTING

YSA Branch: Nolan Beatty

Volunteer Registration

Volunteers who will be helping at Cypress Park Elementary have until October 25th to register with the Orange County Public Schools volunteer program, ADDitions. Just click the link below and select "Click Here To Proceed To Volunteer Management System" at the bottom of the page. Please read the instructions on the page before you begin to register.

Are you ready to serve?

Our stake Day of Service is only  two weekends away! Come join us at Cypress Park Elementary School and help beautify their campus with general landscaping, replanting flower beds, painting the school exterior, and much more.  Remember to register with Orange County Public Schools volunteer program, ADDitions School Volunteers Management System. Just click the link below and select "Click Here To Proceed To Volunteer Management System" at the bottom of the page. Please read the instructions on the page before you begin to register.

If you are unable to help at the school we invite you to come help sort the donations that have been collected at the stake center, which will be delivered to the school that day.

Lunch will be served at Cypress Park Elementary, those who help at the stake center are invited to join us there.  The school is less than 5 miles from our stake center!


Driving Directions from Stake Center
4.3 mi, 8 mins

1. Head northeast on W Wetherbee Rd toward Bohannon Blvd   
2. Turn left onto Co Rd 527/S Orange Ave   
3. Turn right onto 4th St   
4. Turn right onto 11th Ave, Destination will be on the left


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Hundreds of Young Single Adults Gather in Orlando for a 3-day Conference

On August 9^th-11^th, hundreds of young single adults (ages 18-31) gathered for a conference at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in Orlando. They came to participate in several enlightening devotionals and workshops to inspire them to improve themselves and the lives of those around them.  The conference covered the southeast region which includes 10 states and 1000 LDS congregations. Simultaneous conferences were held in Nashville, Atlanta, Charlotte, and Hattiesburg. The conference is the biggest in the history of the North America Southeast Area of the Church.

The event was organized by George Menden, under the direction of Elder Rulon D. Munns of the Seventy of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  In May, June, and July leading up to the conference, young single adults were asked to participate in a reach and rescue plan, service activities, and to attend LDS Temples.  The reach and rescue plan was to invite less-active and non-member friends to participate in the summer events and conference. They also participated in service activities in their communities which locally included removing invasive plants called air potatoes at Peghorn Nature Park and Trail in St Cloud.  

 

 

 

On Friday night, the conference kicked off with a dance, ping pong tournament, karaoke and more.  Saturday morning the young single adults were addressed by Sheri Dew, president and CEO of Deseret Book Company, and Brad Wilcox, professor in the Department of Teacher Education at Brigham Young University.  A blood drive was held during the conference for OneBlood, the third largest blood bank in the US that services 80% of Florida's population.  OneBlood had two buses which were filled to capacity the entire time volunteers could donate blood. Rick Walsh, the volunteer chairman for OneBlood, came to thank the over 800 young single adults that attended the conference, at the Orlando South Stake Center, for donating blood as part of their humanitarian service opportunities.  After seeing the overwhelming response of the participants to donate, Mr. Walsh regretted that they had only brought two donation buses and noted how they could have filled at least four. 

Participants then attended a variety of workshops with subjects ranged from avoiding the downward spiral of debt to studying the Atonement of Jesus Christ.  The day’s events closed with dinner and entertainment, provided by Wantilan Luau Show, followed by a dance and more games. The following day was Sunday morning worship services which featured concluding speaker, Elder David A. Bednar, a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

“Something that stood out to me was during Sheri Dew's talk. She gave a story of how one of her friends was having issues and simply how she helped, just doing simple things that we can do. . . There's so much we can do out there that's very easy for us, but it can have a huge positive impact on somebody else. Whether it is by service or just being a friend, we should work on strengthening each other and in the process we can also become stronger.”  Carlos Guzman, 20, St. Cloud, FL

“My favorite workshops had to do with finances, surprisingly enough! I really enjoy how it helps prepare us for things that we are going to face very soon.” Georgette Gomez, 20, Kissimmee, FL

“I enjoyed a class titled "Avoiding the Downward Spiral of Debt" because especially in this age of independence and freedom we have the responsibility over our wealth. It also helps because we are college students, times are getting tough!” Marizette Munoz, 20, Kissimmee, FL

“This is the first time in history that the Church has sponsored an area wide conference in the Southeast for the Young Single Adults. Never before have thousands of Young Single Adults worked together, served together and rejoiced together as they have in the activities leading up to the conference and the conference itself. The Young Single Adults of the Southeast are vibrant, energetic and committed and it has been a joy working with them to make this conference happen.” says Elder Rulon D.Munns, a member of the Church’s Quorum of the Seventy from Orlando.

George Menden, a member of the Conference Organizing Committee, said this of the young single adults that helped to organize and accomplish the conference. “The Latter-day Saint Young Single Adult community is exceptionally talented – they have made this event happen.  The leadership group of more than 225 Young Single Adults has planned, promoted, and executed all of the events of this conference. The creativity and energy that has shaped this conference has been inspiring.”

For more information about the conference in general, visit http://www.southeastysa.com/.

RUN and not be weary, WALK and not faint

Join fellow members of

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

at

The American Heart Association Annual 5K Walk

Saturday September 7^th

University of Central Florida

7 am

 

Join our team online

www.greaterorlandoheartwalk.kintera.org/thechurchofjesuschristoflatterdaysaints

 Click “Join our Team” on the right hand side

Follow instructions to Register

Donate if you would like. 

There is no fee for the race.

 

Last year more than 18,000 people joined together to support this great community effort. 

This is a wonderful opportunity to be seen and heard as we put the Word of Wisdom into ACTION!

RUN/WALK T-shirts will brand us all (kids and adults)

They will be available mid-August for $5 each

To order a shirt send an email to ldsraceshirt@gmail.com

With name, ward, and size

Help us reach our goal of 200 walkers! 

Questions call Brittany Pratt 407-709-3527

Spread the word … Mormons are on the move for Heart!

 

Service opportunity from home or anywhere

If you are looking for a way to serve from home, indexing historical documents is a simple way to help serve those who are researching their family history.

Your time is a huge gift. Volunteer to make historical records searchable online. http://t.co/YHbVdPJTFO
— The LDS Church (@LDSchurch) August 4, 2013

Hunters Creek Day of Service 2013

Hunters Creek Day of Service 2013

Saturday, October 26

Cypress Park Elementary School

Join us for our stake Day of Service at Cypress Park Elementary School. Our stake has adopted this school through the Partners in Education program for Orange County Public Schools. As participants in this program our stake members can serve the community by helping the administrators, teachers, and students in a variety of ways. For our day of service we will be helping to beautify their campus with general landscaping, replanting flower beds, painting the school exterior, and much more.

Orange County Public Schools has requested for the safety of the students, that all volunteers for this activity register on their ADDitions School Volunteers Management System. Please visit the link below and then select "Click Here To Proceed To Volunteer Management System" at the bottom of the page. Please read the instructions on the page before you begin to register.

If members are unable to make it on that day there will be many other opportunities to help serve the school. Supplies, books, and clothing drives are being organized to be sorted and delivered that day. Please check back for more details on how you can donate or help with the sorting of items.

Give Kids the World - Day of Service

On November 17 our stake held its annual Day of Service at Give Kids the World. Give kids the World provides "memorable, magical, cost-free experiences to children with life-threatening illnesses and their families." Volunteers helped by clearing up the landscaping, refurbishing landscaping decorations, re-sand pavers, general cleaning and much more.