Family Promise of the Palouse (FPP)

Family Promise is an ecumenical non-profit partnership working to end homelessness, one family at a time. Twenty congregations locally offer immediate shelter and support to families.

St. Mark's has more than 20 volunteers who partner with volunteers from St. Mary's Roman Catholic Church about four times per year to provide shelter (at St. Mary's Family Center), round-the-clock supervision, meals, and companionship. Volunteers cook food and share meals with the families, offer tutoring and skills-building, and otherwise help families get back on their feet.

Over the past 20 years this nationwide program has served 400,000 families. After five years of operation, Family Promise of the Palouse has served 62 families (163 individuals), including 88 children. With our partner congregation, in 2018, we contributed 600 volunteer hours during our hosting weeks! 

Weekend Food For Kids

Weekend Food for Kids is a summertime collaboration between St. Mark’s and the Unitarian Universalist Church of the Palouse to provide food for children in need.

No child should have to go to bed hungry, but in Moscow approximately one in four does—at least once a week. Since 2014, St. Mark's has offered a take-home food program for summer weekends. Last year we distributed nearly 2,100 bags. This year we’ll pack our first bags on Thursday, June 17. The first bags will be handed out on Friday June 18.

Moscow School District provides some free summer week-day lunches to any child who comes to the meal-site, but they don't cover Saturdays and Sundays. St. Mark's spearheads a community effort to cover that gap providing more than 100 bags of food weekly. The Unitarian Universalist congregation has split the effort with us since 2016.

Each food bag contains two breakfasts, lunches, and dinners, plus snacks, and fresh produce—including donations from generous local gardeners and farmers. See below for ways you can donate with cash or food.

The first year, MSD said we'd need 20 bags per week. But we learned from the families we served that the need was much greater. In 2015 we started with 30 per week, increased to 60, and increased again to as many as 90! Now we serve over 100.

And we're supported in part by generous donations from Moscow Rotary, and other donors, as "in kind" gifts: including from Gritman Medical Center, discounts from Walmart, and many gifts from individuals.

We're supported in part generous donations from organizations such as Smith-Barbieri Progressive Fund, the Moscow Food Co-op Dime in Time program, and others, as well as in-kind gifts from the Gritman Foundation, Moscow School District, and various individual donors—large and small.

How you can help

If you’d like to volunteer or learn more,
talk with Lois Clifton, Carol Espe, Nancy Lyle or Harriet Hughes

To donate, make your check payable to UUCP, with WFFK written on the memo line (important to ensure that the funds are properly allocated), and mail it to UUCP, P.O. Box 9342, Moscow, ID 83843. Donations of any amount are much appreciated. We also appreciate donations of clean used plastic grocery bags.