National Mission

Westminster’s national mission work currently focuses on four primary areas: housing rehabilitation in Appalachia with the Appalachia Service Project; regional hunger concerns through gleaning trips in connection with the Healthy Harvest Food Bank and the Society of St. Andrew; support of Native American ministry and mission with the Bdecan Presbyterian Church in Spirit Lake, North Dakota; and support of the National Capital Presbytery mission efforts.

Westminster members support these projects through volunteer service outside the Beltway and donations, both in-kind and monetary. The committee also facilitates financial contributions through the quarterly Cents-Ability program in support of local and national hunger relief efforts, including Westminster’s annual Thanksgiving meal distribution. See below for more information about each of these ministries. If you would like to get involved, please contact nationalmission@wpc-alex.org.

Ten youth and adult advisors stand in work clothes in front of a house they have been repairing.

Appalachia Service Project

Our church has supported Appalachia Service Project since 2010. ASP uses volunteers to conduct home repairs in Central Appalachia to help individuals and families live "warmer, safer, and drier."

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Gleaning Trips

Our church continues to give our labor and resources to the Healthy Harvest Food Bank and the Society of St. Andrew, who work together to ensure unpicked produce from Virginia farms and orchards goes to Virginia’s neediest families. On two trips in the summer or into September, Westminster children, youth, and adults follow the professional pickers and harvest the leftover corn or apples.

Our groups have made several hundred pounds of corn available to central Virginia food pantries via the Healthy Harvest Food Bank, and several tons of apples with the Society of St. Andrew at Marker-Miller Orchard in Winchester.

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Bdecan Presbyterian Church at Spirit Lake

Since the early 2000s, Westminster has supported the programs at Bdecan (pronounced Bah-DAY Chan) Presbyterian Church in Tokio, ND on the Spirit Lake Reservation. Part of the Northern Plains Presbytery, Bdecan is the only Dakota Presbyterian church in North Dakota.  

We also provide scholarship funds to students at the Cankdeska Cicana Community College on the Spirit Lake Reservation.

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Cents-Ability

Are you ready to collect some small change to make a big difference? Take a bank home with you, put in a few cents at each meal for each member of your family, and then bring it back to church on Cents-Ability Collection Sundays. In addition to supporting the national Hunger Programs of the PC(USA), a portion of the money we raise will support the annual Adopt-a-Turkey program run by the Local Mission Committee.

This is a wonderful opportunity, right around your dinner table, to have conversations with friends and family about hunger and poverty. In the United States:

  • 34 million people are food insecure
  • 9 million children are food insecure
  • 53 million people turned to food programs in 2021
  • 100% of U.S. counties have food insecurity
    Stats from Feeding America

These are realities that affect so many men, women, and children each day; sometimes in Kenya or Cameroon, sometimes just down the block. As we give thanks for our daily bread, please continue to support this program, which in turn supports so many others in our community, nation, and world.

Use these Table Graces to thank God for his gifts and to pray for those who experience hunger. 

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Mission with the National Capital Presbytery

As a member congregation of the National Capital Presbytery (consisting of PCUSA churches in the metropolitan DC/MD/VA area), Westminster contributes significantly to the NCP mission fund.  This fund serves ministries in the areas of new church development and church transformation, immigrant congregations, and a variety of mission programs and networks. For more information, go to thepresbytery.org.