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Email to FriendVIRGINIA: Mustard Seed grants help enable mission
The Mustard Seed Fund was begun in 2002 as part of the Fifth Century Fund capital campaign of the Diocese of Virginia with the goal of strengthening the various ministries of the diocese. The fund receives gifts from both individuals and congregations.
Overall, 111 grants totaling almost $1.2 million have been through the fund, which is a competitive program that helps support initiatives for youth and college ministry, local outreach, world mission and the strengthening of local churches.
The parishioners of St. James in Leesburg will use their $30,000 grant this summer during their mission trip to the Bromley Mission School in Liberia, which provides a home and education for 187 girls, primarily war orphans. Twenty missioners from St. James -- both youth and adults -- will travel to Monrovia to work with Solar Light for Africa to install solar panels that will provide electricity for the school.
Two Richmond parishes, St. John’s and St. Mark’s, will use their $5,000 grant more locally to support outreach to wounded U.S. veterans at the Hunter Holmes McGuire Medical Center. The two churches serve together in an outreach ministry to provide respite activities and support services to the center’s patients and their families, specifically to active-duty personnel being treated at the hospital’s polytrauma unit, which treats some of the most badly wounded veterans of war.
Other churches are using their grants to increase outreach in their communities through music. A grant of $10,500 will provide scholarships for church musicians and others at small- to medium-sized parishes to attend a two-year Leadership Program for Musicians course in church music. Meade Memorial Church in Alexandria will benefit from a grant of $2,500 that will fund a monthly music concert series called “Jazz at Meade.”
The Trinity School of Early Learning, based at Trinity, Arlington, will use a grant of $23,630 for the renovation of its soon-to-be-reopened preschool, which provides reasonably priced education and care for children ages 2-5 from a wide variety of backgrounds, income levels, ethnicities and faiths. The grant will supply upgrades for the outdoor play area, as well as annual upkeep costs.
“We’re proud that the Mustard Seed Funds are strengthening churches and nurturing mission and outreach programs on all scales in the Diocese of Virginia,” said Patsy Bjorling, director of stewardship and development. “From international mission efforts to local community outreach, these grants are making a big difference in the way that churches live out the mission and ministry of the Episcopal Church.”
A full list of this year’s Mustard Seed Grants is available here.
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