Social Justice and Community Service

Winter Nights Rotating Family Shelter

The Winter Nights Program provides a clean, safe, and warm facility at night and a daytime services center during winter for homeless families with children and for homeless seniors. The program serves up to thirty men, women and children at any given time. Congregations throughout central and east Contra Costa provide space, meals, and volunteers. Orinda Community Church helped to start Winter Nights and has housed families through this program for two weeks each winter since it began in 2004. Today the program involves nearly forty congregations and hundreds of volunteers, and is administered by the Interfaith Council of Contra Costa County. More information.

Contra Costa Interfaith Housing

In 1991, concerned Contra Costa County faith communities made the decision to join together and develop badly needed permanent, affordable housing for the county's homeless families and individuals. Today, CCIH membership includes more than twenty inter-denominational, faith-based communities who cooperate and share resources and skills. Together, we work to provide permanent, affordable, supportive housing for individuals and families in Contra Costa County through the program's 27-unit Garden Park apartment complex in Pleasant Hill. More information.

South Berkeley Food Program

For nearly two decades, volunteers from Orinda Community Church have assisted weekly in a much-needed neighborhood hunger project operated by the South Berkeley Community Church, a sister United Church of Christ congregation.

Climate Change Group

Orinda Community Church explores issues like global warming, environmental stewardship, and our moral responsibilities as Christians living in a fragile and interconnected world. A comprehensive report undertaken in 2007, The Greening of Orinda Community Church, reviewed a variety of concrete steps we have taken as a congregation to reduce our impact on the environment and ensure a sustainable planetary ecosystem. Read the full report. Test your ecological footprint with this quiz .

Women Helping Women: Spirituality Through Service

is a group of women in the congregation, gathering to join hands in service with women throughout the world.  The group meets most months on the first Saturday at 10am.