Serve The City Geneva

Newsletter e

Bike / Velo rider needed

BIKE DELIVERY 1X per week  

The Salvation Army is looking for several volunteers to deliver unsold bakery items to a place that welcomes homeless people.  

Days (your choice): MONDAY TO FRIDAY  
Hours: 2 p.m. – 4 p.m.  
Le Passage (rue du Valais 10),
then Boulangerie Jenny & Cie, Avenue de Châtelaine 80, 1219 Vernier.  
– Return to the Passage to deposit the goods and then (2nd travel) go to:
Jenny & Cie bakery, Bd Helvétique 29 or,
Rue Pierre Fatio 15-17, 1207 Geneva  
Return to Passage drop off the bike.  

An electric bike and a trailer are available. You have to be comfortable on a bike for this activity.  
If this activity interests you signup for more information on the STC website.   

January Newsletter – Serve the City Geneva

Dear Volunteers, Happy New Year to all !!

     We have had a fantastic year of being able to help those in need!!

Feeding the homeless from the soup kitchen, we have offered 5,000 hours of volunteer time! Hundreds of hours collecting, sorting, packing food for the marginalised of the community.  We continue to help Ukrainian Refugees through the Salvation Army by contributing meal service help 7 days a week at Belle Experiance hotel in the old town, and a party for old and young refugees during the holidays. 

     We are going to continue for the next few months (rain or shine!) to help the BioParc take care of their very special animals in Bellevue, along with supporting the Reffetorio, a very special evening meal restaurant that is free for the homeless.

Signups for all events can be found on our website now. 

   With snow on the ground, it is a very difficult time for those who are homeless or without work.   Please think about finding time to help them survive and thrive.  

We are still packing food bags for the needy and are nearly finished sorting and preparing all the very generous donations from Samedi du Partage. In addition, we have helped gather much needed clothing which is especially apprecated in the winter months.

I hope this email finds you well and experiencing a super start to 2023!

Bioparc has given us some Saturday dates (9am-1pm) for the next 3 months as follows:

21 January

18 February

18 March

Sincere best thanks and best wishes for the new year ahead to you all for what you do to help the animals at Bioparc, Bellevue and in turn our Geneva community.  

Angela Project leader. 

If you are no longer able to help us. Please do signout of STC Geneva Team. We currently have about 3,400 members but about 1,000 have never signed up for a project, and we would prefer to have a list of 2000 active members!

(So please do sign up, so we can publish 3,400 active members…with T shirts!)

Just a little side story while I’m thinking of t-shirts… We are truly a secular organization here in Geneva, but I wanted to confess last Saturday I went to a Christian men’s breakfast. What did I see working in the kitchen but someone in a  red STC t-shirt helping prepare our meal! I had thought about wearing my t-shirt for advertising reasons, perhaps hoping someone would ask me what that was all about.. but decided not to do so.  Four others there, like me, had left their shirts at home. I am very sad for my decision, as what is better than reminding the whole community to think about serving others!

Please.. wear your shirt anytime you can.. I know I will never forget it again as I was so proud of seeing the red splash at a community meeting! 

Again, wishing all of you a very, very special 2023!!

April Newsletter

What’s going on with Serve the City these days?

Lots of things.. both Hot & Cold.

Most of the Service bureau’s are keeping tight.. minimal activities, stay in your room, don’t use volunteers, so basically business is slow..

We do have a weekly Zoom meeting with the other STC organisations around the planet! We talk about what is going on in our regions.. How they are helping and what they are allowed/not allowed to do. Check out Serve the City International

One activity that we do have going, is with the Mt.Brillant Soup kitchen (sponsored by Carrefour Rue).

Their soup kitchen had to close, but they started making box lunches to take away at their facility , feeding about 200 lunches 5 days a week. For the past 3 weeks, we (STC) have had a team, making over 200 sandwiches a day each Tuesday and Wednesday, delivered to the door (actually just outside the door). Other teams box up the daily lunches and pass them out. 😊 ALL our team members, have committed to stay on, doing sandwiches thru April ! Yeah team.!

The other good news was: that when STC was given the challenge of sandwich making back in March, we had to close the signups after 60 minutes.. and in the following hour we had over 25 more volunteers trying to get involved.. 😄 Many, many thanks .. to you wonderful volunteers..!

Our sponsors are eager for us to find projects for our volunteers, and are willing to fund projects as well.

We are limited to supporting local projects for the marginalised, homeless, hungry persons of the community, and are continuing to search out ways to help. One of our new sponsors, Lundin-Energy.com is helping us fund these existing and new projects this year. They are an off-shore oil company in Norway working here in Geneva and want to help give back to the community. Also many thanks to the team there!

Perhaps you can help! We are looking to find 500 or 1000 masks to give away to this lunchtime community. If you have access to any, let us know. We checked out Amazon; 50 masks for 13.87 clicked on the link: and price was 28.88 !? delivery late May early June 😒
( I should check ..it may have been April 1st )

More about the videos and masks, here are a couple Youtube links, if you haven’t seen them;

About the masks in Czech Republic:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZtEX2-n2Hc&t=2s

Study about the droplets:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXhzjGbH7QA

To finish off a bit more of our last year.

In 2019… We had 377 new registrations for Serve the City Geneva (this March we had 40 !?)
in 2019 Volunteers signed up for 518 events (not counting the soup kitchen which had 3-7 participants every day we served !) And we had over 70 events to choose from.

And now we are up to 2,303 registered volunteers!
(if you are unable to participate , please reply with subject: REMOVE )

If there is anyone living in France and able to work in Switzerland. We have some T-shirts that we would love to deliver to Swiss Mt.Brillant soup kitchen.

With sincere loving thanks.. The STC team.

Last Chance!!! At least for the BBQ registration for this Saturday..

(24.9.2019)

However, not to worry! You are still welcome to drop by. You must just bring your own lunch 🙂

We will have some speeches , testimonies, movie clips, music, introductions and more.
We very much hope you will stop by and say hello.

We know you Servers don’t seem to like to be recognized !?!?! But we are trying anyway. And very much appreciate what you are doing for the community. We sent out 22 invitations for those who work serving at the Salvation Army. Zero elected to come to a meal offered by them to their helpers ! The restaurant 5th day wanted to celebrate their 1 year anniversary with a thank-you evening. Over 40 STC volunteers and service providers were invited.. but so few signed up; it hat to be cancelled..

Please come and join us.. Please sign up NOW on the web site, for sure by Wednesday (for food planning) Thanks..

Several more events will be coming up in the next few weeks , do keep in touch.

We will be taking bookings for the first of a couple of events for the handicapped kids at Clair Bois.

Our big event where we could use about 100 volunteers is the Partage Food collection, and later Sorting of the collected food.. Of course we have Mt. Brillant, Salvation Army & 5th day food kitchens, all working.

Thanks for being so faithful..

The Serve the City Geneva team..

P.S. We have a separate signup if you want to contribute to Saturdays event.

We could use 2 more servers help set up the show, need disc jockey to bring a playlist, We could use a few more potato salads, or reasonable substitute.. Merci..

March Newsletter

(20.03.2019)

Dear volunteers,

Serve the City welcomes you to come and help your local community this spring!

Montbrillant soup kitchen

STCG needs additional volunteers for the soup kitchen at the Jardin de Montbrillant (behind Gare Cornavin). We need more volunteers to commit to alternate Tuesdays from 9am to 1pm. Additionally, it would be great to have a couple of standby volunteers on board to step up when needed.

Please sign up today! When you sign up, let us know in the “Comments” section whether you wish to be a regular volunteer or a standby volunteer.

The next soup kitchen is on Tuesday 26 March.

Le ​5ème Jour

Saturdays from April to June

Le 5ème Jour (“The 5th Day”) restaurant opened in Eaux-Vives in 2018, combining innovative cuisine, healthy and sustainable food and humanitarian principles. From Tuesday to Friday, it functions as a regular restaurant. On Saturdays (i.e. the fifth day), the chef provides a free gastronomic meal exclusively for those in need: refugees, the homeless and the disadvantaged.

We are looking for 10 volunteers to join our team of Serve the City helpers for April, May and June. Each week, two volunteers will help to serve the meal and interact with guests, making them feel welcome and giving them a chance to tell their stories. One of the two volunteers needs to speak French, and other languages are also useful.

Volunteers will have the opportunity to serve on 3 or 4 Saturdays during the 3-month period. If interested, please sign up on the Serve The City website.

– A Project Liaison Manager is being sought for this project, to be the contact point with the charity organisations who invite the guests who participate each week. French and English required. If this could be you, please mention your interest in the comments section of the event’s sign-up page.

Bellevue Zoo project

The Parc-Challandes.ch zoo in Bellevue needs our help! This facility was established with the goal of introducing school children to a wide variety of animals and rehabilitating injured animals. We have two projects coming up during which we will help to set up appropriate natural enclosures for the animals.

Saturday 13 April, 9am – 1pm (5-8 people), lemur enclosure:

  • We need people with plenty of energy and basic woodworking skills (tools will be provided but extra saws would be appreciated).
  • Please bring your own lunch, but drinks and snacks will be provided.

Saturday 25 May, 9am – 1pm (6-8 people), parrot enclosure:

  • Deconstruction of branches and positioning of new ones.
  • Please bring your own lunch, but drinks and snacks will be provided.

La Garenne zoo

Wednesday 17 April, 9.30am to 3.30pm,

La Garenne is another wildlife rescue park in the mountains over Nyon. This project makes a great place for a family outing, contributing to the park’s development and maintenance in various ways. A variety of tasks are on offer, including planting, cleaning, installing drainage pipes and more. We are looking for about 10 volunteers. Lunch will be provided, and anyone who can only make a half-day will also be welcome.

Stay tuned more springtime events…