Churches United of the Quad City Area is happy to announce that the Fill the Rig Collection Event, benefitting our emergency women's shelter, Winnie's Place, will be held at the Silvis Hy-Vee store, 2001 5th Street, on Saturday, December 12 from 9am until 3pm.

Lists of Shelter needs will be available at the door to purchase or bring for Winnie's Place.  Genesis Emergency Department (Ambulance Service), Illini Campus, puts this annual event together, so look for the ambulance to donate!

We hope you will join us!

QUAD CITIES, IA -Jaycees of the Quad Cities, a young professionals service organization shopped for a cause on Tuesday, December 2 in honor of Giving Tuesday. $8,000 was invested in nearly 100 local individuals, families, teens, seniors, and organizations.

Proceeds from the Jaycees events support this annual effort. This year was one of the largest yet.

More than 30 members assisted these great local agencies including Family Resources, Humility of Mary Housing, Center for Active Seniors and Winne's Place. These agencies were chosen based on their mission to support at-risk populations including teens, seniors and youth.

"Community needs are great but this year in particular Illinois based agencies are being hit hard with the budget impasse," said Jennifer Kincaid, President.

About Jaycees of the Quad Cities: Jaycees aim to build personal and professional relationships by working together on projects to strengthen and grow the Quad-Cities community. The Quad Cities Chapter is one of the oldest chapters in the state of Iowa and has grown to include young professionals from both sides of the Mississippi River. They pride themselves on blending social opportunities with service - like planning the annual Bridal Expo and the Brew Ha Ha that raise funds for charitable initiatives.

Individuals and groups interested in volunteering with Jaycees of the Quad Cities should contact info@jayceesqc.org or call (563) 484-0041.

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Bettendorf, Iowa, December 1, 2015 - In March of 2014 friends Karly Driscoll and Monica Burchett found themselves feeling the same call to do something for others after a weekend retreat at their church. One email led to another and the conversations and brainstorms continued to evolve. The end result is a new Quad Cities nonprofit organization, Project 15:12 Love One Another, that plans to love others when life happens.

"One day I got an email from her (Driscoll) with the subject line 'Tell me I'm crazy,'" Burchett remembers. "It was about a woman who started up a nonprofit organization to help inmates. I told her the jail part might not be my thing, but that I could totally get behind a nonprofit!"

Since then the two have been working on defining just what that nonprofit would be and who it would serve. The two felt there was a void in the community, as well as many other communities, for people in the middle place. Project 15:12, which takes its name from the Bible verse John 15:12, Love each other as I have loved you, aims to help people who might not qualify for other assistance programs or people who wouldn't normally go looking for assistance. Their goal is to help this population by offering emotional, spiritual, and practical support when they are experiencing a hard season of life such as divorce, loss of job, loss of a loved one, natural disaster, illness or unexpected circumstance. Services Project 15:12 will provide include (but aren't limited to): immediate financial support during life transition to help with groceries, day care costs, rent or mortgage, daily life costs, providing and delivering warm meals, household items, and household services.  Beyond providing these important physical needs is also the utmost importance of providing prayer for people going through life.

"We really want to serve a niche or population of people who currently aren't being served. We know the need is out there and we feel there is a great need for this in our community," Driscoll says.

After making some great strides in the summer of 2014, the two women each experienced some of their own life transitions, which put Project 15:12 on the back burner for awhile.

"We came to a bit of a standstill ," Driscoll says. "My sick grandfather moved in with my family for a couple of months, Monica took a temporary job and then had a baby, so we both needed a little time to work through some changes in our own lives."

This fall the two got serious again about making Project 15:12 a reality. They revisited and revised their business plan, put together a board of directors, and filed the necessary documents to earn their nonprofit designation, which they just received late November. They started raising funds by reaching out to friends and family and the word has spread from there.

Burchett says they have established three criteria when considering a person or family to receive assistance from Project 15:12. First, the person or family must be living in the Quad Cities area. Second, recipients should not currently be receiving income-based welfare benefits (e.g., TANF, Medicaid, SNAP). Lastly, a family or individual can receive Project 15:12 funds or assistance for up to three months per 12-month period. After they have received the maximum amount of assistance, they will need to wait 12-months from the last month of assistance before applying for Project 15:12 funds again.

Anyone wishing to receive help from Project 15:12 needs to either fill out a request form or be referred by someone. Driscoll says she sees more referrals coming in rather than people asking for help for themselves.