Around Town: UGM grants, Care+Share, St. Augustine Marpole . . .

Union Gospel Mission is offering $100,000 to 22  churches which are helping their communities. Photo: Mike Erskine, Unsplash

Union Gospel Mission (UGM) has announced it plans to distribute $100,000 to 22 communities which are supporting their neighbours. Eligible applicants are encouraged to apply for a UGM Transforming Communities Grant.

Here is how UGM describes the grant program:

We see the role of the church as paramount in the health of every community – which is why we want to support stabilizing, growing and creating new programs that support neighbours in need.

We are so grateful for the work that you do in attending to the spiritual, physical, social and emotional needs of those facing poverty, homelessness and addiction in your community. As we emerge out of the pandemic, a collaborative effort as the Church is required to reach our most vulnerable neighbours, whose challenges have only intensified. A question . . . how is God leading you to respond?

We have an incredible opportunity to partner in helping to meet these needs through UGM’s Transforming Communities Grant! 

What is the Transforming Communities Grant?

The TCG is a granting program in partnership with UGM, that provides financial and technical support to existing and new congregational Communities of Care programs, so they can stabilize, grow and replicate. Our desire is to walk alongside you, as you walk alongside your community – advocating for those facing the challenges of poverty, homelessness and addiction.

This year, we are offering 22 grants in varying amounts. Eligible applicants are encouraged to apply for a grant between $500 and $20,000.

Follow this link (https://ugm.ca/transforming-communities-grant) for more information on grant details and the application and budget forms needed to apply for this grant. Additional information is also provided for the scope of the funding and criteria for selection.

Deadline: All application materials must be received by 5 pm, May 13.

Contact UGM’s Church Relations team ([email protected]) with any questions or for assistance in preparing your proposal.

Care+Share

The Anglican Diocese of New Westminster is also supporting good works – not by handing out money, but by receiving financial contributions made by parishes and individuals and then forwarding funds several times a year to the current recipients (who are selected every two years at Diocesan Synod meetings).

The announcement of the ‘Feed My Sheep’ Care+Share projects stated:

Food insecurity has risen in most of the regions that make up the Diocese of New Westminster. There is a deep desire to help alleviate this problem and now thanks to Care+Share, people from our diocese can make a significant coordinated impact.

Here are the recipient ministries for 2022 – 2023:

• St. Thomas, Chilliwack: Food Ministry
• St. Dunstan’s, Aldergrove: Thursday Community Meal
• Holy Trinity Cathedral, New Westminster: The Breakfast Club
• St. Barnabas, New Westminster: Grab and Go
• St. Alban’s, Richmond: The Lunch Box
• St. Augustine, Marpole – St. Augustine’s Community Meals & Marpole Food Hub
• St. Mary’s, Kerrisdale: Food Ministry
• St. Agnes, North Vancouver: Sharing Abundance
• St. David and St. Paul, Powell River: Sycamore Commons Vegetable Garden Community Partnership

St. Augustine’s

Guests arriving at St. Augustine’s food hub. Photo: Randy Murray (Diocese of New Westminster), September 4, 2020

One of the Care+Share churches is also getting some help upgrading its building. Stephen Quinn, host of CBC Radio’s The Early Edition, introduced an April 25 segment:

The St. Augustine’s Anglican Church in the Marpole area has been a pillar of the community for over 100 years.

With a congregation of less than 50, it’s a small church, with a big impact on the community – they call themselves ‘the little church that could.’

But there are particular challenges to maintaining heritage buildings as old as this one, and members of the community have stepped up in a big way to help the Church.

Meredith Sargent, St. Augustine’s treasurer, described some of the support the church is receiving and the church’s ongoing work in food security:

For a long time now the church has provided meals. There’s two things about food. Everybody needs food and good nutrition and needs to have some relief from that stress of not knowing where their food is going to come from. But the other thing about food is that it’s a great way to develop community. . . .

Up until the pandemic we were running a sit-down Thursday evening meal. People would come and gather and eat together – an extension really of the congregations that are there on Sunday mornings. . . . The pandemic put an end to the sit-down part, but we were determined to continue providing that support within the Marpole community.

I’m not sure how much you know about Marpole, but it’s a little bit of an anomaly on the west side of Vancouver. It’s a quite low income area and a very genuine community. We’ve continued providing meals that you could come and collect and take home, but the Food Bank changed its outreach model because of the pandemic as well.

So instead of the Food Bank coming with a big truck of food three Thursdays in the month and distributing that from the church, the Food Bank sought partners in the community to create food hubs. So we put our hand up with a couple of other groups within the community and became a food hub. . . .  Every Thursday we have about 108 families come and get groceries.

Go here for the full interview and here for an article about how the food hub was established.