Meet Your Neighbor: Velma Adams

I started attending St. Lukes in Forest Hills after my sister passed in 2002 . I joined in order to take my niece, who’d grown up going to church with her mom.  I slowly got involved, first by joining the choir, then by joining the church’s outreach program.

In the outreach program, we do community work and raise money for organizations.  I’m responsible for the Jesse Tree. Each year,  I get a list of children’s names from QCH’s Eviction Prevention Unit. I write each child’s name on an ornament and place each ornament on the Jesse Tree. Then I ask members of the congregation to take an ornament and bring in a gift for that child. I ask each member to carefully wrap the gift and place the ornament on top so I can double check no one is left out.

The list of names gets longer every year. When I first started, there were 35 children. Last year, it was 112. We have many people in our communities in need. I always ask everyone to dig deep.