The Alleluia Fund

Each year during the Easter season, the people and congregations of our diocese join together as "flashlights of faith" to support outreach and mission by making gifts to the Alleluia Fund.

During the Advent season of reflection, examination and planning, it’s natural to consider "giving back" for the many blessings bestowed during the past year. But often, after reviewing the numerous needs of so many, a common question arises: What difference can just one person make?

If you are a member of one of the more than 200 households that contributed to the 2011 Alleluia Fund so far this year, you made a major difference in improving the lives of hundreds of individuals through your support. Established in 2010, the Alleluia Fund provides an opportunity for individuals to contribute to a variety of outreach programs and ministries on a diocesan level.

This past year, the Alleluia Fund bestowed 22 grants, focusing on the areas of food, shelter, education and international programs. Here are just a few of their stories.

The Youth of St. James’ Church in Upper Montclair presented a special night of scary ghost tales and spooky tours on Sunday evening, October 30, 2011.

Ghosts and Spirits that hide in secret corners and hallways of St. James came out to hear their stories shared with visiting tourists on the eve before Halloween.

The Youth Group collected $150 in donations which will go to the Alleluia Fund in support of diocesan outreach programs.

Nestled in the eclectic bedroom community of Montclair, New Jersey is one of the country's fastest growing college campuses. Spreading over 246 acres, Montclair State University has a diverse population of 18,000 students (3,700 of them resident on campus) and 4,500 faculty and staff. Every fall there are new students launching an entirely different experience of their life journey. Others are returning, perhaps to their final year of college. But, they share a common bond of life, love, fear, joy, pain, expectation...

In their impressive book Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide, Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl Wudunn tell story after story of women in the developing world in order to create a call to arms against what they call “our era’s most pervasive human rights violation: the oppression of women and girls in the developing world.”

Although our society promises the magic of anti-aging elixirs, the psalmist affirms it is only in God that we can find true renewal. Not just as we get older, but at all times in our lives, God’s love and care strengthen us enough to give us wings. It is hard to imagine that children need that kind of renewal; it is usually the adults who can’t keep up. But some children have experiences that limit their abilities or weigh them down.

Over the last two decades, the local community food pantry has become as ubiquitous as a Dunkin Donuts or a Starbucks. The Community Food Bank counts over 1500 of these pantries among its partners in the state of New Jersey. That means 1500 individual small community food pantries deliver an astounding 37 million pounds of food yearly. Sadly, there is that much need. But that also means there are over 1500 places and infinitely more opportunities to bring about healing and connection.

Christ Church, Ridgewood pursues several forms of “hands-on outreach," but one of the most compelling connects the rural, suburban and urban realms of our metropolitan area. The result, when all goes as planned, is a delicious and nutritious meal for the residents of the St. Paul’s Men’s Shelter in Paterson.

Over 1 million meals. Over 100,000 volunteers working over 600,000 hours. Twenty-five years of service. Watch Bishop Beckwith, Executive Director Terry Connolly, and others relate the history of the Community Soup Kitchen of Morristown on the occasion of its 25th anniversary, in this moving video written and produced by Diana Wilcox of Redeemer, Morristown.

One year ago, Episcopal Community Development had a budget of $700,000, and a staff of 5.5.Fast forward to the Alleluia Season of 2010, and ECD has doubled its budget & tripled its staff. Not bad for a tiny non-profit that was launched with diocesan funds in 1990. In fact, ECD has enjoyed diocesan support every year since.

For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there until they have watered the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be... (Isaiah 55:10). How are people watered? What are the things that nurture people in order that they sprout -- not just grow but flourish and bloom?

You shall take some of the first of all the fruit of the ground, which you harvest from the land that the LORD your God is giving you, and you shall put it in a basket ...