Epworth Missions & Ministries Outreach Programs
Free Community Suppers, Tuesdays 5:30 - 6:30pm (doors open at 5pm)
      Nourishing meals are prepared by hand and served free of charge to the community in our downstairs kitchen and Fellowship Hall. Epworth feeds between 70-100 friends from our community every week. We also have a table with some food items and a rack of clothing for folks to take as needed.
Free Lunches, Saturdays 11:00am - 12:30pm  
     Delicious vegetarian lunches are prepared at Epworth for no charge by the Des Moines Friends of SAI every Saturday.
Epworth Quilting Group
      This ministry team meets every other Tuesday at 9:30 am to cut, sew and tie quilts, which are then blessed and prayed over, then donated to Hawthorne Hill, PHC, and various elementary schools - all to keep our community warm! Hawthorne Hill is an organization dedicated to assisting homeless youth who are in the Des Moines schools. We also donate quilts, as requested, to neighborhood elementary school children and to homeless through PHC. The Epworth Quilters donate over 100 quilts each year.
Annual Free Health Clinic Day - Usually held in September each year.  Epworth, in cooperation with the Des Moines SAI Fellowship (a Hindu/Christian organization of physicians from India), organizes, publicizes and hosts a free health screening day with the presence Physicans, Polk County Public Health nurses and the Visiting Nurses Association. Many neighborhood and greater Des Moines residents come to take advantage of a free health screening, a free lunch, free reading glasses and no-cost consultation with physicians in several specialties.
Spring & Fall Basement & Bake Sales - We have two annual Basement & Bake Sales each year (Spring (April) and Fall (October). They are an effective and highly valued neighborhood community service. The proceeds from the baked goods helps fund our Quilting Group. The basement sale proceeds helps to fund our other church ministries. Our 2023 Spring Sale was a huge success and so was our Autumn Sale!! Blessings to all who volunteered and donated goods, and to all who attended!
Stuff The Bus - Stuff The Bus is a United Way of Central Iowa yearly children's book drive in which Epworth participates. We collect new and gently used children's books and cash donations June-May each year and donate them to help "Stuff The Bus". Epworth purchases new and used books from Wall of Books-Ankeny at great prices with the funds we collect for our yearly drives.
     Stuff the Bus is United Way's annual book drive. Their 2024 goal is to collect 24,000 books for children from birth to middle school. Our greatest need is for early childhood books – birth to age 8. Books are donated to childcare centers and child-serving programs in Dallas, Polk, and Warren counties to help us reach our goals in the area of Education Success.
 
 

All of these ministries are led by volunteer, lay members of the church. They are funded through Epworth’s United Methodist Women, the Missions Evangelism Committee and individual gifts.  If you wish to volunteer, please contact the church office.