mission fund

It is with great pleasure that I present to you the Mission Fund’s report of the following approved grants for 2017. The total amount distributed in 2017 was significantly less than prior years.

Total Distribution: $40,876.00

1) Collateral Repair Project | $8,000

Purpose:  To enhance funding for the Emergency Assistance Program and when possible introduce self-care and wellness techniques, which provides food vouchers and personal hygiene kits to Iraqi and Syrian refugee families located in Amman, Jordan.

Distribution Categories: Poverty, Crisis Recovery

2) Interfaith Assembly on Homelessness and Housing | $7,500

Purpose:  To enhance their empowerment efforts to serve men and women who are or have been homeless through their 3 month life-skills programs that include community meals, goal settings and alumni follow-up.

Distribution Categories:  Crisis Recovery, Poverty, Education

3) Mwangaza Education for Partnership ELCT/ELCA | $5,500

Purpose: provide seminars and training  for administrators to create and maintain a safe environment for all students, ensuring emotional & physical safety as well as cultural literacy. A curriculum has already been created.  The money will help train 36 participants from 12 schools.

4) Advent Food Ministries | $5,000

Purpose: To support the Community Lunch and Food Pantry that  averages 150 - 200 guests per month.  Also to support the distribution of 150 bags of grocery each month.

Distribution Categories:  Poverty, Advent Initiative

5&6) Equipo El Salvador | $3,850

Purpose:  To support the installation of a new bathroom ($3,300) for Pueblo de Dios in Caldaritas. The new facility will be on-site, clean and sanitary. A second grant ($550) will support ½ the cost of one church member, LeRoy Tucker to join the Summer 2017 trip to Caldaritas.

Distribution Categories:  Poverty, Lutheran Partners, Mission Trips and Education

7) Lutheran Counseling Center | $3,026

Purpose: To support counseling services for up to 15 families toward bringing together children, teens and parents in anxious times with professional counselors to improve empathy and especially self-esteem with teenagers and young children and offer supportive services to their parents..

Distribution Categories:  Crisis Recovery, Lutheran Partners

8) Robert Daniel Jones Refugee Shelter | $ 3,000

Purpose:  To provide opportunities for internships for shelter guests, needed supplies and food for community dinners. RDJ is one of the only refugee assistance shelters in NYC.

Distribution Categories:  Education, Crisis Recovery

9) We Are Becoming | $3,000

Purpose:  To support the drop in center (to tenant renting space in basement of Advent Lutheran Church) and the launch of an action plan to secure and establish a home for ages 18-24 that have aged out of foster care and find themselves homeless. This is a start up.

Distribution Categories:  Poverty, Education, Lutheran Partners

10) Holy Nativity Lutheran Church Food and Clothing Pantry and Wellness Expansion | $2,000

Purpose:  To provide program support for one month of their food ministry and the supplies needed to expand their closet for donated clothing and household items that they deliver to those in poverty in Baltimore, Maryland.

Distribution Categories: Poverty

We had sixteen total submissions. In addition to the 10  applications funded, there were six additionals requests that were not funded. The Mission Fund distribution guidelines used in reviewing the applications can be found at http://www.adventnyc.org/programs/advent-mission-fund.

If you have questions, you may contact missionfund@adventnyc.org.

I give thanks for my fellow committee members who assisted in this important decision: Pastor Ann Tiemeyer, Carlos Lopez, Tanya George Kent, Robin West, Kathy Carpenter, and Rose Tresgallo.

Committee Members for 2018 are: Ellen Pollan (chair), Tanya George Kent, Kathy Carpenter, Rose Tresgallo, Carlos Lopez, and Pastor Danielle Miller.  We will seek one new member from the Council to be determined.

Blessings abound,

Ellen Pollan, Mission Fund Chair