Church Periodical Club Receives S.W. Florida Donation
Episcopal News Service. March 22, 1984 [84061]
NEW YORK (DPS, Mar. 22) - "The Church Periodical Club? That's got something to do with magazines, doesn't it?" Well, yes. But it's a lot more than that, too.
The Church Periodical Club is an organization in the Episcopal church dedicated solely to the ministry of the printed word. A non-profit organization of volunteers, supported by voluntary contributions, each year it sends hundreds of Bibles, books -- and, yes, magazines -- to those who have no other way of obtaining them.
Recently their work was given a big boost when President Betty Thomas Baker received a check for $2,000 from Club representatives in the Diocese of Southwest Florida. This was presented by diocesan director Sandra Davis at a series of workshops Baker did for Club representatives and Episcopal Church Women in Southwest Florida. The amount was a source of pride for both Baker and Davis, as it doubled the amount given by the diocese last year. In addition, the Club in Southwest Florida is helping to support six seminarians with grants of $500 each, also a rise from last year.
The involvement of the Episcopal Church Women in Southwest Florida carries on a long tradition. Women have always been among the strongest supporters of the Church Periodical Club -- perhaps because it was founded by a woman: Mary Ann Drake Fargo.
Traveling with her husband in the Dakota territory in the late 1800's, Fargo was shocked by the dearth of reading material for the people there. Upon her return in 1888, she and eight other women from the Church of the Holy Communion in New York began sending periodicals west (via her husband's Wells Fargo stagecoaches) to missionaries among the Sioux. By 1892 there were 48 parishes involved, and the Church Periodical Club had grown to the point where it applied for and received its Charter of Incorporation from New York State. The National Books Fund, which deals with requests for grants from this country and the wider Anglican Communion, was established in 1922.
Fargo's goal was to have a representative in every parish. With 91 diocesan directors currently enrolled, today's Church Periodical Club is coming close to attaining that.
The first non-parochial organization to use the SWEEP (service, worship, evangelism, education, pastoral care) evaluation introduced at this past General Convention, as a result the Club has embarked on a program to reinforce its diocesan links. They have also developed a Challenge Plan which, in addition to a representative in every parish, set as a goal for each congregation to raise $100. Half would be used by the parish for local book needs, such as subscriptions for prison inmates, hospitals, and youth centers and half would be sent to the diocesan director. Of what was received by the diocese, half would be used for diocesan book needs -- for seminarians, companion dioceses, etc. and the rest sent to the national Club for provincial, national, and world-wide needs.
With roughly 7,500 parishes in the Episcopal Church, if each one met the Challenge Plan goal, the amount raised would be $750,000. After the local and diocesan portions were used, there would still be over $100,000 left for national grants. Baker points to the success of the Challenge Plan in Southwest Florida and says "We can't do it over night, but if we can raise it 10 percent every year, perhaps by our centennial in 1988 we can make Mary Ann Fargo's dream come true."
For further information on the Church Periodical Club or to help in its work, contact: Kathryn Andrews, Church Periodical Club, 815 Second Avenue, New York, NY 10017; telephone: (212) 867-8400, ext. 424.