Brad Riner Assistance Office

06/26/2022

We are transitioning the management of the Brad Riner page. Please be patient with us as we make these changes.

12/31/2020

Happy New Year from the Riner Office

The Riner Office provided our clients with a somewhat simpler Christmas than we have in the past. We focused on the basics. We handed out 40 Christmas food boxes with all the ingredients for a complete Christmas dinner, as well as food for a family for the week. We included a turkey breast and gift cards donated by Dove of the Desert UMC.

For our homeless, we gave out 60 gift bags filled with socks, hats, gloves, raincoats, blankets, hygiene items, ground cloths, etc. as well as food. Dollar store gift cards were donated by Ann Nimlos, and we included those as well.

We continue to hand out 60-70 lunches each week in addition to food bags for the homeless and food boxes for families.

We appreciate the generosity of the congregation of the First United Methodist Church of Glendale. Every week when I walk into my office I find donations left on the table in the Riner Office. Often I am unaware of who left them but I am always grateful. It is an honor to be able to help so many through the generosity of all of you. Those of us in the Riner Office wish all of you happiness, joy, good health, and peace in 2021.

Sincerely,
Elizabeth Leggett

07/16/2020

The Brad Riner Assistance Office will be closed until August 10th.

06/18/2019

Welcome our newest Interim Director of Outreach---Elizabeth Leggett!

06/18/2019

Thank you for my send off to Tennessee! I love my FUMC of Glendale Missions/Riner Assistance Office Team!

05/06/2019

05/06/2019

Welcome to our newest volunteers! Leah (on the right) helps primarily with clothing and is an organizational genuis. Renee (on the left) is an "all around" who can assist John at the front desk or help with inventory in the back.

04/29/2019

Compassion is the fragrance of love. Love is the flower. How do you know there is love? There is compassion.” Yitzhak Benarush
My family is moving to Knoxville, TN in July to seek a better life for our family---better job and housing, weather more compatible with active boys, lower cost of living, and more college/school options. We are excited and a bit overwhelmed with the myriad details involved in selling our home and moving 1600 miles with a large family. Beside family and friends—the hardest thing to leave is my volunteer team and opportunities to show compassion and support to folks visiting the Brad Riner Assistance Office.
I am so proud of our church members and associates who faithfully give clothing, food, toiletries, money, time and other resources to the homeless and needy through the work we do in the Brad Riner Office. I am thankful that I get to be a part of seeing people transformed by hope and compassion. They come in with heavy hearts, worry lines, sad stories and even tears. We are friendly, listen, help and dispense hugs with permission, provide prayer and referrals where we can’t and see many leave with a smile or kind words of thankfulness. It has been a joy to be your agent of outreach and love to our community. Thank you. Your love for “the least of these” is fragrant and will be a memory I will cherish in my new home.
Please encourage and thank our volunteer team. Not only does our church equip us well to bless our community but the volunteers have been dear friends giving of their talents in unique ways to form a strong team. My job has been easy with the regular gift of time and support from Azzie, John, Brenda, Rosella, Lois, Elizabeth, David, Michael, and Leah. From time to time we have had extra help from Bob, Eileen, Anne, Titus, Cyrus, Harley, Renee and Vicky. Pastor Kim and Pastor Tom are always supportive; Christine is a team player and a resource genius. David Mosley helped immensely when he was head of SPRC and made a great Santa. Rosie has been a mentor to me as a lay leader as well as in my position of Outreach Director. Without Rebecca---you might as well close up shop---her title of “Office Manager” barely conveys the countless ways she makes our work a success.
I’ll be here enjoying every minute until July; I pray God dovetails our personal plans with the efforts of the SPRC to find a replacement so that maybe I can work with a new or interim manager to share what I have learned. Thankfully, with technology, I can be available for questions or watch for encouraging Facebook posts as I pray for the future of this tangible expression of FUMC Glendale’s sharing of God’s love for others.
I hope that when I move on to heaven---maybe people will love me enough, as Brad’s family and church loved him, to start something as meaningful and impactful as the Brad Riner Assistance Center.
Bless you all, Dawn

04/08/2019

Compassion is the fragrance of love. Love is the flower. How do you know there is love? There is compassion.”
Yitzhak Benarush

03/11/2019

We have such a great spirit of teamwork in the Riner Office. I am so thankful for the faithfulness of the volunteers. It is such a blessing that each person has a role to play that frees me to do the more complex tasks like grant writing and decision making about resources. Eileen and Lois manage clothing donations; Leah has come on board to organize children’s clothes and help bless children identified as needy through DCS and the Care Portal Ministry. John and Brenda act as front office/reception and greet and hand out lunches/food/toiletries. Azzie is in charge of inventory and keeps meticulous records of what is donated and what we have on hand. Azzie and Rosella put donations away, pack lunches and make up food and hygiene bags. David either helps or goes to St. Mary’s one hour per week to sort through available items and often delivers clothing and food or shops for the Riner Office. The value of these volunteer hours is an average of 88 man hours per week. At minimum wage that is worth about $3696/month. And today we welcome back a volunteer who has been under the weather--So good to see Michael.