Serve the City Geneva

Newsletters January 2022

Dear STC team,

We have been doing a great deal of work for the past two years under COVID.

Our teams have been very well protected from catching the virus during any of our events. And the volunteers have been very careful to sign-out of the event if they were in any way not feeling completely safe. We had some fantastic work done by many during the Christmas season and many people were served.

But now the good news/ bad news:

The Samedi du Partage food collection event was amazing!!  Around 250 tons of food and household supplies were donated by the generosity of the shoppers during that Friday and Saturday. The bad news is we estimate that it will take another 6 weeks to sort all the goods to make them available to those in need. So we are asking for your help. Serve the City has pledged sorting support 2 days a week through the end of February. Please get your families & friends (+16 years of age), your fellowship groups, any of your contacts. Basic Covid protocols are followed, mask, sprays, and distancing. We have chosen a variety of week days in hope we can find at least one that suits you. 

We have 10 different sign-up dates on our website. If you sign up for more that 5 days, register for the 1st day then put your other dates in the comments (trying to help you not having to signup 10 times ;o). And thanks for signing out of the event if you are not feeling well.

Dates are: 17, 24 January & 1, 3, 9, 11, 16, 18, 22 & 24 February

On Saturday, 22 January, we have an event at the BioPark in Bellevue. We are putting together a team to help prepare for some new Meerkats to the zoo. Families welcome.

Many many thanks the volunteers who participated in the Weekend Samdi du Partage food collection.
We had over 80 volunteers wonderfully directed by Alice & Katja who were the Project leaders on the event.

We now can be thinking about sorting the tons of donations collected this weekend. 
From 2 December to 14 January Food Sorting will be taking place week day mornings at the new Partage offices in  Plan-les-Ouates,
Serve the City has booked 1 day a week for 6 weeks and we hope to see you there.   If you are a teenager or older you are welcome to join in. 
You must signup on the www.ServeTheCityGeneva.ch website for your available days.   If our dates do not suit you, you can take a look at the Partage website for more options.  Serve the City booking days are;

10 Dec.  17 Dec.   22 Dec.  27 Dec.   6 Jan.  &  12 Jan.

 Espace Tourbillon,
bâtiment D,
19A Route de la Galaise,
1228 Plan-les-Ouates,
2ème étage  

The Zoo in Bellevue is preparing for a couple of new additions when 2 meerkats will be arriving in a few weeks. 
We are looking for 2 teams to help prepare a home for them on December 4 and December 11.
Again signup on the website and more information will be available.

Feeding the homeless is also one of our continuing projects at least thru December.
If you can make sandwiches on a Monday or Tuesday do make your offer known with a signup.
The Montbrilliant soup kitchen may still have a spot or two for helpers.  Do signup for information. 

Carrefour Rue is looking for some cooks to help out at the La Coulou emergency shelter. Some funding is available. 

We hope to have some Christmas / New Years project on offer soon, so do keep in touch.

We are always looking for more opportunities, so if you know or see something that may be of service do let us know.. 

Thank you for being one of our 2,600 registered volunteers here or near Geneva.

The STC Geneva team

Happy Halloween to all!

We have been doing amazing things since Covid began in early 2020.

Over 30’000 take-away meals, thousands of sandwiches made for the homeless.

100’s of bags of clothing collected to be given to those in need.

Our fixed team of volunteers in the Soup Kitchen has been doing an amazing job, several volunteers working for at least once a week for 18 months!!!

Now WE HAVE A NEW opportunity to serve the community. STCG needs 100 volunteers to collect food in 5 stores. The event is a semi-annual programme called “Samedi du Partage” (more explanations on the website), taking place on 26 and 27 November. If you, your family and friends would be willing to help, do sign up on our website www.servethecitygeneva.ch, on the “Current Activities” page.

We continue to encourage you to make sandwiches for the homeless through December. Or to help pack 5’000 food bags a week for distribution.

Have a look on our web page for more information.

We also will be looking for Christmas / New Year’s ways to serve as well. If you find opportunities in which we may help, do contact us (info@servethecitygeneva.ch).

Thanks in advance for your engagement! Do keep in touch.

Your Serve the City Geneva Team

Dear volunteers,After supporting us for several weeks at Palexpo, we inform you that due to our move to Tourbillon, 21 Route de la Galaise, Plan-les-Ouates from October 1st, the shopping bag preparation sessions are suspended from the 17th September and will resume on October 13 at Tourbillon.You can already register on our platform without further ado.We have, in fact, been able to prepare and anticipate enough shopping bags for this interval period.Thanking you in advance for your commitment and support, best regards.The Partage Foundation  & Serve the City

Greetings Serve the City Volunteers,

Even under COVID conditions, we have been doing surprisingly well! Lots of problems and lots of volunteers stepping to help!! Thank you so much!

Here is an update on current projects:

We will continue our Food Bag packing project at PalExpo certainly through August: Thursday and Friday mornings. The city of Geneva has funded the program well into September too, and we will keep you informed. The program is designed to help those in Geneva economically hurt by the many closures and is doing its best to help.

Because of Covid restrictions the Soup Kitchen cannot open their meal service to the 200+ homeless guests each week. STC has been asking volunteers to help the Soup Kitchen at Mountbrilliant to prepare take-away meals. We are looking for more who are willing to make 70 sandwiches sometime during the week.. details on the STC webpage.

The Samedi du Partage program, designed to help the homeless, has a couple weeks of needs…such as, for example, counting and taking inventory of the non-perishables collected. We have all week day mornings available. If there are any changes we will let you know.

We have projects underway at two zoo operations nearby. The BioPark in Bellevue and parc La Garenne in the town of Le Vaud. We can even do some weekend projects there.

Carrefour Rue has some requests in September for help at their shop, La Jouetterie, near the main train station. A little French is helpful here, or bring a friend!

The Meal in September is a huge event for us, serving 1000 meals to guests at this Local Producers Fair. Sign up for more details!

For all events , do signup on our website for registration, and information. Our project leaders will keep you informed.

We are looking for a project manager to look after researching additional environmental projects. Perhaps working in Nature Reserves, e.g., Trail maintenance, Saleve walkway cleanup, or other such projects.

best regards

Serve the City Geneva