We are a small and very active church. There are many opportunities to volunteer – within our church, within our community and even around the world.
If you are interested in volunteering, you may contact the church office at [email protected], or the mission contact listed. Current volunteer needs and opportunities are also listed on our SignUp Genius page.
Vale Church has many opportunities to serve with your time and talents. Listed below are some of the many ways you can nurture your heart and soul by getting involved – everything from music to missions!
Note: Additional volunteer opportunities are also posted on the Vale Missions bulletin board in the main hallway and in the bulletin.
Vale loves our little children and offers age-appropriate programming for our little ones as they grow.
Sunday School is offered for children preschool through 5th grade during our 10:00 am service. The children may join their families in the sanctuary for the first part of the service, and then will be dismissed to class.
Nursery care is available during the 10 am service for children under 3.
Vale provides a preschool program for children ages 3 and 4. Preschool is held on Tuesday through Friday from 9:30 AM to 12:30 PM. For more on our preschool program, please visit Vale Preschool, or email Preschool Director Diane Willard at [email protected].
Vale supports both Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts.
On the second and fourth Sundays of each month at 5-7 pm, we invite youth 6th-12th grade and their friends to join us for fun, fellowship, and food! Contact Miracle Ryder at [email protected] with any questions.
Confirmation classes are conducted each year for 6th grade students and above. For more information on the next session, contact Miracle Ryder at [email protected].
Each Sunday at 9:00 in the Resource Room and on Zoom. No sign up needed, just show up. Zoom link available here. Materials for the week here.
Currently on hiatus until January 2025.
Each Wednesday at 10:00 am in the Resource Room and on Zoom. No sign up needed, just show up. Contact Rev. Jeff Haugh at [email protected] for the Zoom link.
Each Saturday at 9:00 AM on Zoom. No sign up needed, just show up. Contact Rev. Joanna Dietz at [email protected] for the Zoom link.
Women of Vale Church are encouraged to become active members of the United Methodist Women (UMW), a group dedicated to nurturing faith, participating in missions, and supporting fellowship among each other.
The UMW’s primary focus is missions. We support the United Methodist Family Service, Christ House, Embry Rucker Shelter, Hospice of NoVA, Second Story, The Closet, FACETS, Food Pantry, mission outreach to West Virginia and Southeast DC, and the youth scholarship program. We also carry out special projects, such as collecting books for Project Transformation, a children’s literacy program; assembling baskets of toiletries for victims of domestic violence; maintaining an ongoing relationship with our local police and firemen; and joining the Vale Club to send care packages to our military serving in areas of conflict around the world.
The UMW participates in a number of yearly activities, including making handmade chocolate Easter eggs, hosting a luncheon for the ladies of the church, and providing leadership for the church yard sale and fall festival.
The UMW serves whenever and wherever we find a need in our community or within the Vale family. We invite all women of the church to attend our meetings held the third Thursday of each month (September through May) at 1:00 p.m. in the Resource Room. For more information, please contact the church office at (703) 620-2594.
The Vale UMM meetings are currently on hold.
Coffee fellowship is a gathering time after the worship service for visiting with old friends and welcoming new ones. Join us Every Sunday at 11:00 to engage with the Vale community! If you would like to help provide snacks, please sign up here.
The Vale Book Club meets the second Tuesday of each month, September through June at 10:30 am via Zoom. During our first meeting, we share our summer reading, develop a reading list for the coming year, and enjoy refreshments and fellowship. Each year our group has gotten larger and our book selections have become more diversified. The Book Club is open to church members and the community. We invite you and your friends to join us. For questions, contact Mary Morran at [email protected] or Terri Lowry at [email protected].
The Prayer Shawl group meets on the first Saturdays of each month at 10:30 am in the Resource Room to knit and crochet for ministry. They make hats and scarves for our military through Operation Gratitude, shawls and lap blankets for those going through illnesses or in need of comfort, and baptismal and baby blankets for our newest members. All experience levels are welcome, and lessons are available for those that need it. For more information, contact Margie Koller at [email protected]
All children grades K-6 are welcome! Rehearsals are each Sunday after the 10:00 AM service for 30 min., and the choir sings in the 10:00 AM. service approximately once/month, Christmas Eve and Easter. They also perform a big musical in the spring for both services.
The Adult/Chancel Choir practices every Wednesday night from 7:30 to 9:00 PM. The choir sings regularly at the 10:00 AM Sunday worship service, and provides special music during the seasons of Advent, Christmas, Lent, and Easter. They are always looking for more members! For more information, contact our Music Director Jan Smith at [email protected] or (703) 732-2750.
The Flute Choir, which is comprised of both Vale and non-Vale members, holds rehearsals on the 2nd and 4th Tuesday of each month from 7:30 to 9:00 PM. The choir performs during Sunday worship services six times a year (on the third Sunday of alternating months) and occasionally plays at other churches. Participating in the flute choir gives flute players, who may not have many opportunities to play, the chance to hone their skills and just enjoy their instruments. The repertoire includes sacred, secular, and classical music. The choir has a bass flute and an alto flute so that full choir arrangements can be performed. All participants are welcome to play the bass and/or alto flutes.
Contact Linda Allardyce at [email protected] or 571-445-3735 for more information.
The Handbell Choir rehearses on Sundays from 12:15-1:15 PM and plays for worship services falling on the third Sunday, every other month. The choir also presents a special dessert concert in the Spring. Anyone who can count can play handbells; there is no requirement to have any musical background or experience. The church has five octaves of handbells and an extensive library of handbell music, including secular, sacred, and classical. For more information, contact Norm Dietz, at [email protected] for more information.
Vale is joining with Good Shepherd UMC. Oakton UMC, Hunters Wood PTA, and the Fox Mill Giant to address hunger in our local schools. We are partnering with the communities of Fox Mill, Hunters Woods, Oakton and Vienna. We will be working to decrease the debilitating effects of food insecurity on children in our community by packaging and providing meals for breakfast, snacks, and weekends. [Shepherd: Eileen Koefoot, Stan Ellis]
Every other month, in partnership with FACETS – a nonprofit organization in Fairfax – Vale prepares and delivers 80-100 hot dinners to homeless men, women, and children living on the street and in motels along the Rte. 50 corridor in Fairfax. [Shepherds: Mary Morran]
Learn more at their website.
Every winter, Vale partners with FACETS and the Interfaith Community in their effort to prevent deaths from hypothermia. Vale provides dinners, lunches, and volunteers to support two local churches in feeding and sheltering homeless men and women overnight. Also, in conjunction with the Lamb Center – the day shelter for homeless people in the area – we host one of the picnics held during the summer to build on the relationships formed with homeless individuals during the shelter program. [Shepherd: Vicki Alonzo, Laura Gori]
Learn more at their website.
Transforms the lives of children and youth, helping them stay safe, make positive decisions, achieve educational success, and overcome personal crisis. Vale provides a monthly dinner (4th Tuesday of the month) to this emergency shelter that is part of a comprehensive crisis intervention program. [Shepherd: Jan Feeney]
Learn more at their website.
Working with families in the Highlands public housing community in SE DC, this ministry focuses on:
This nonprofit thrift store sells gently used clothing & household goods. Income over expenses are returned to various local charities. Vouchers are given by local Social Services to those in need of clothing and other items. Vale provides two volunteers to The Closet once or twice a month. [Shepherds: Chris Olson]
Learn more at their website.
Vale has been working in Guatemala for the past 13 years. Every summer since 2006, Vale has sent a mission team to the Highlands of Guatemala with the goal of diminishing poverty through empowering indigenous Mayan people. We work largely with women, collaborating on projects of their choosing that teach them skills and help to improve the lives of their children and families. We welcome participants from within and outside of the congregation, including children, teens and their families. [Shepherd: Deb Cohen]
Vale UMC spends works together with Rise Against Hunger a global nonprofit organization that focuses on feeding hungry school kids in developing countries. Starting in 2012, Vale has hosted an annual meal packaging event, usually in January, in which hundreds of volunteers of all ages from the community have joined church members to package a total of 465,000 meals. The ingredients for these meals (about 75,000 per year) are paid for entirely by Vale Church, using the net proceeds from selling Christmas trees in December. (In fact, many of the volunteers at the meal packaging event are the same people who bought their Christmas tree at Vale only weeks earlier.) The meals are sent to developing countries and distributed to school children, often in the wake of major disasters. [Shepherd: Mike Martin]
Learn more at their website.
Vale Church since 2008 has hosted an annual Christmas tree sale to raise money for fighting hunger “near and far.” Staffed by Vale Church members, alongside scouts from Troop 1983 and their parents, the sale kicks off on the first Saturday after Thanksgiving and stays open typically until the last weekend before Christmas or until all the trees have sold, whichever comes first. The event has grown steadily and now sells more than 800 trees each year. It provides a festive opportunity for Vale members to interact during the holidays with our neighbors in Oakton, Vienna, Reston, Herndon, Fairfax and other parts of northern Virginia. Shopping for trees and wreaths at Vale Church is a fun family activity that many area residents have made a part of their Christmas traditions. Because Vale spends the net proceeds from every Christmas tree on our anti-hunger initiatives; our slogan is “Buy one tree, feed 100 kids.” Most of the funds are spent on buying ingredients for our annual meal-packaging event, held every January with nonprofit organization Rise Against Hunger. At these events, hundreds of volunteers – including many folks who bought Christmas trees from Vale – assemble to package at least 75,000 meals for hungry children in countries devastated by disasters. Vale Church also donates additional Christmas tree sale proceeds to local organizations that feed hungry people right here in Virginia.