Asylum Seeker Focus  Day!

Join Serve the City on 15June for a day spotlighting serving Asylum Seekers in our community. Some projects will directly connect with the asylum seekers, but we’ll also have projects serving the homeless, elderly, victims of abuse, disabled, and children-in-need.

Please chose a project and give a hand.

Register online here.

Schedule for the day:

12:30 Registration at Epee (8, rue de l’Epee, Brussels, 1000)

13:00 Welcome/Introduction

13:30 Projects begin

16:30 Debrief

17:00 End of day

We look forward to seeing you there!

REGISTRATION LINK>I want to Register for Big Volunteer Week! <REGISTRATION LINK

You Got Served!  Now it’s your turn!

We hope you are here because someone recently went out of his or her way to serve you and then give you one of our cards.  If not, we invite you to join the You Got Served! campaign and help us spread the word about the 2013 Serve the City Big Volunteer Week on July 1-5 in Brussels.

At Serve the City we’re all about loving people in very real and practical ways.  Each spring we recruit new volunteers to serve with us during the annual Big Volunteer Week.

So here is how it works….

1.  Be on the lookout for opportunities to bless someone in the midst of your daily routine.  Here are some simple ideas of things you can do:

• Pay for a stranger’s meal.
• Offer up your seat on mass transit.
• Make cookies for your neighbours.
• Bring your bus or tram driver a fresh pastry.
• Leave a nice tip for a waitress.
• Buy groceries for someone in line behind you.
• Wash a neighbor’s car.
• Top off some parking meters before they expire.
• Give your employees the afternoon off.
• Leave your newspaper or magazines on the tram for someone else to read.
• Write an anonymous letter of encouragement to a colleague
• Offer to return someone’s shopping cart for them.
• We are sure the best ideas will come from you!

2.  Smile and give them a “You Got Served” card. Our hope is that people will read the cards, visit the website, and catch the vision to join the STC Big Volunteer Week this summer.

3.  After you experience the joy of serving others, look for your next chance to brighten someone else’s day.  If you run out of cards, you can pick some up at the STC office or at STC events.  Grab some each morning and keep them with you wherever you go.

Many people doing small things can make a big difference in Brussels.  Let’s spread the word for Big Volunteer Week by Serving the City!

Here are some more great ideas!  Feel free to share this video with friends too!  https://www.facebook.com/video/embed?video_id=10152308160141494

July 1-5 is Serve the City’s annual BIG VOLUNTEER WEEK, aimed to engage local neighborhoods in active service and foster a sense of community. The kickoff will take place June 29 at 12:30 PM in the Marolle. There will be several different projects offered each day within the community. The schedule for the week will look like this:

Here is an overview of the week’s schedule as well.

Saturday, 29 June — Intro Day

12:30 Registration at Epee (8, rue de l’Epee, Brussels, 1000)

13:00 Welcome/Introduction

13:30 Projects begin

16:30 Debrief

17:00 End of day

Monday, 1 July – Friday, 5 July

9:30 meet at EPEE – Rue de l’Epée 8 – Bruxelles 1000

9:30 registration

10:00 briefing

10:30 depart for projects (some projects are only in the afternoon – so for these people we have filler projects such a cleaning) Also an optional prayer session at this time on the first floor of EPPE.

10:30-16:30 work at various sites/projects

16:30 meet back at EPEE for debrief

Saturday, 6 July — Street Party

13:00 volunteers needed to help with set-up, food preparation, etc. at Place Jeu de Balle

17:30-22:00 street party at Place Jeu de Balle (come and go as you please)

REGISTRATION LINK>I want to Register for Big Volunteer Week! <REGISTRATION LINK

Join Serve the City on 25 May as we head into Brussels to get our hands dirty with some Spring Cleaning.  Some projects will directly connect with beautifying Brusseles, inside and out, but we’ll also have projects serving the homeless, asylum seekers, victims of abuse, elderly, disabled, and children-in-need.

Schedule for the day:

12:30 Registration at Epee (8, rue de l’Epee, Brussels, 1000)

13:00 Welcome/Introduction

13:30 Projects begin

16:30 Debrief

17:00 End of day

We look forward to seeing you there!

Register Now

Elderly Focus Day!

Join Serve the City on 20 April for a day spotlighting serving the elderly in our community. Some projects will directly connect with the elderly, but we’ll also have projects serving the homeless, asylum seekers, victims of abuse, disabled, and children-in-need.

Please chose a project and give a hand.

Click here to register:  http://servethecity.wufoo.com/forms/elderly-focus-day/

Schedule for the day:

12:30 Registration at Epee (8, rue de l’Epee, Brussels, 1000)

13:00 Welcome/Introduction

13:30 Projects begin

16:30 Debrief

17:00 End of day

We look forward to seeing you there!

Serve the City is running in the Brussels 20K on May 26th as a fundraiser. You could be a part of running and raising funds!

The cost is 50 euro which includes: registration, running number, STC t-shirt, charity, once a week group training, and the best cheering section present at the event!  Our goal is to raise 5,000 euro by the race day and to have at least 50 people running!

Tell your kids, tell your wife, cuz it’s going to be a big deal!

To register with Serve the City team:
Send an email to Liz to register with the team, and thenpay for your registration online using PayPal.

If you would like to participate in group training once a week please meet Thursdays at 18:45 at Time Square (Boulevard du Triomphe 32).

You can invite others using the facebook event as well.

Our next Big Volunteer Day Splash on 16 March.  Splash.  There will be more than 15 projects serving in all the focus groups, and we’ll be celebrating World Water Day, by raising awareness about the global water crisis and raising money for wells in Malawi. Register today and prepare to cross the line!

Serve the City would like to thank all of the partners who have come together to make Splash a success!

- People to People International: PTPI

- Jane Goodall Institute

- Lions Clubs Brussels Heraldic

- African Enterprise

- International School of Brussels

- Lets do it Belgium

- FC Ireland

- The Irish Club of Belgium

- British School of Belgium

- St. John’s International School

- The European Schools

Each week in March, STC will be hosting events to help raise funds for our ongoing efforts to serve Brussels.   It is a great way for our core STC community to invite friends and colleagues to come have a drink and hear more about the vision Serve the City has to mobilize volunteers to cross the line into the under resourced neighborhoods of Brussels

Our first event will highlight our weekly Food 4 Friends group that meets weekly to feed our friends who live on the streets and often stay at Gare du Nord.  We will gather for drinks, share recent stories, remember some old ones and simply meet people who have faithfully served our friends in need over a period of two past years.

Food 4 Friends Drinks

Donation: 10 Euro a person, our goal is to raise 500 Euros.

Time: 19:00

Location: Scott’s Bar,  Rue Montagnes aux Herbes Potageres 2, Brussels, BE.

In the weeks ahead, we will post more information regarding a Beer Tasting, an International Dinner and other fun events where you can come out and help support the efforts of STC to make Brussels a better place.

You can also make a one time donation directly to our fundraising efforts using this information.

Serve the City A.S.B.L.
Bank: BNP Paribas Fortis
IBAN: BE62 0015 2682 4961
BIC: GEBABEBB

We have been getting great feedback all week from volunteers involved in last Saturdays Victims of Abuse Volunteer Day.  Today we learned of an article written by Assistant to a Scottish MEP that attended the STC event and wanted to shed more light on the issues we raised surrounding human trafficking.  You can read it here on ThinkScotland.org.

Here are some of the organizations we mentioned at our VOA day.

http://slaveryfootprint.org/

http://www.stopthetraffik.org/

http://careforeurope.org/

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/free2work-org/id406044086?mt=8

Check out what other volunteers were saying as well at our debrief.

“Serving today was really helpful for me to know what is outside of my world.”

“We met refugees from Rwanda and Cameroon and talked to them while we did their nails. I was really surprised to hear that several of the ladies had left children behind in their home countries. One lady had 5 children that she left behind.”

“The one observation we all made was that in a small building, the residents didn’t know each other’s names. Even thought they share a common space to eat and relax, they were not all friends. We realized part of our role was to introduce them to each other and give them something to do together. We realized their needs were not only physical and financial, but social; they were surrounded by other people, but were very lonely.”

“After two months of hosting a small café for local residents, some of them felt comfortable enough to approach us and ask if we would be willing to teach them English.”

“Sometimes when you come out to volunteer you are so focused on wanting to help others, but what stood out to me was the interaction. It was a Saturday afternoon and we were having fun together. Making those relationships with volunteers meant as much to me as helping the ladies.”

“Today I used how to use compassion and respect in how to approach strangers. We even started to have a natural friendship towards the end of the day.”

“As a first time volunteer, I didn’t know what I was getting into, but honestly I couldn’t have been happier at the experience and getting to know the stories behind the people that I would usually just see on the street.”

“The thing that I really loved seeing today was the transition for the volunteers from when we got there and everyone was a little unsure as we handed out food. But then suddenly, everyone just jumped in and started speaking to everyone and helping out and it was really beautiful. Everyone just went for it and was willing to talk to our friends on the street and no one was shy by the end of the day.”

“You get to really see people on the street shine when you get to talk to them.”

“It was good to see volunteers giving something else to others to enjoy, not just food and drink but time and conversation.”

Join Serve the City on 23 February for a day of serving in Brussels. We’ll be spotlighting our Victims of Abuse Focus Group, but there will be projects meeting many different needs. Register today and prepare to cross the line!

Schedule for the day:

12:30 Registration at Epee (8, rue de l’Epee, Brussels, 1000)
13:00 Welcome/Introduction
13:30 Projects begin
16:30 Debrief at Nativitas (Rue Haute 116, Brussels, 1000)
17:00 End of day

We look forward to seeing you there!

Join us for our first volunteer opportunity of 2013 as we gather on Saturday, 19 January to focus on the needs of the Homeless in Brussels.  More than 2,000 of our friends in Brussels are homeless and almost 400 of them will spend many nights exposed on the city streets this winter. We hope to remind them we are aware of their needs and care about them in the midst of their situation.

We will be serving food at the 3 main train stations, creating a walk-in cafe in the Marolles, playing with children at local squats and serving meals at several social restaurants around town.  Check in begins at Epee at 12:30 and the afternoon will conclude with an after party and debrief at 16:30 at Nativitas.  Please register online if you plan to serve with us.