Living 4 Giving

Our Mission Statement

Living 4 Giving (L4G) is a group of Christians from Trinity Lutheran Church of Dover, New Jersey. L4G encourages the church membership to be aware of societal needs by providing various opportunities to serve within our church, local, and worldwide communities. This can be in the form of service, tangible items and/or monetary gifts.

Lent 2026

Each Lenten season we choose a project to dedicate our time and talent to. In 2026 we collected monetary donations for Covenant House.

Covenant House has been in service since 1972. It opened its doors to over 1.5 million young people experiencing homelessness and trafficking, one youth at a time. To understand youth homelessness, there must be an understanding of the issues and who it affects. As you read these issues, remember the population is ages 18-24, and sometimes as young as 16.
Four of the issues (Note: This information is taken from the Covenant House website.)

Human Trafficking – Youth facing homelessness are extremely vulnerable to human trafficking because traffickers use violence, threats, deception, and other manipulative tactics to trap millions of people worldwide. Children and youth experiencing homelessness are a prime target of this criminal industry. The word industry is unusual, but accurate. It is a for profit business using human beings for criminal activity.
Gaps in foster care can lead to youth homelessness – When young people age out of foster care and other child welfare services, they become susceptible to homelessness which may lead to human trafficking and other threats to their well-being.
Income and inequality lead to increased youth homelessness –
Across the U.S., Canada, and Latin America, places with severe poverty and high instances of income inequality often have the highest rates of youth homelessness. This is especially true when you consider all the forms of homelessness including couch surfing (sleeping on different couches every few nights), unstable housing, family shelters, and living on the streets.
Lack of affordable housing – A low supply of housing push more young people to live in unsafe places, couch surf, or rely on those who would take advantage of them in exchange for a place to sleep.

Mother's Day / Father's Day 2026

This year we are combining our Mother's Day and Father's Day Project. We are collecting coffee and monetary donations for for Faith Kitchen. So far $677 in monetary gifts for coffee has been collected. Approximately ten large cans and 15 small cans of coffee have been donated to date.
This Sunday, Father’s Day, will be the final day to donate to this outreach. Again, thank you for your generous support of Faith Kitchen through the offering of a warm cup of coffee for the clients who enjoy it every day.

Summer Project 2026

For our summer project this year we will be supporting Family Promise.

Trinity’s aim to address local community needs this year lead the Living for Giving Team to revisit Family Promise and its mission. Speaking to those in charge, it was evident that there were some everyday needs to those still waiting for/or just beginning their life in more permanent housing. One need that stood out to the L4G Team was the cleaning and care of the residences families are presently occupying. So, this summer outreach took on some of the components enabling families to reach that end. We will be collecting a bucket of cleaning products for the families. Suggested items are full size bottles of dish detergent, toilet bowl cleaner, glass/mirror cleaner and floor cleaner. These can be any brand.

Here's how you can participate:

Take a suggested cleaner list.
Take a bucket from the narthex.
Purchase the suggested items, place them in the bucket, and return it to church.
If you wish, purchase a bucket you choose, fill it with cleaning products, and return it to church.
Purchase single-cleaning items and place them in the plastic tubs in the narthex. The L4G Team will use the items to fill the cleaning buckets.
Donate monetary funds or a check made out to "TLC" with Summer Project on the memo line.

This outreach enables Trinity’s continued support to Family Promise of Morris County. Thank you for your participation and a way to help homeless families…our neighbors.