UTO Grants Help, Montana to Uganda
Episcopal News Service. [84186]
NEW YORK (DPS, Sept.20) -- United Thank Offering grants totaling well over $2.4 million will once again provide everything from loans in Bangladesh to circuit riders in Montana.
The Fund received more than $2,252,000 from the Ingathering, which became the basis for grants to 125 projects throughout the Anglican Communion. Now in its tenth decade, the Fund -- alongside the English missionary societies -- has been a key vehicle for the expansion of Anglican Christianity. In the last two decades, its major thrust has been the development of the indigenous Anglican churches overseas and the support of social ministries at home.
This year's grants illustrate anew both the breadth of the Fund's mission and the growth of the Anglican Communion. Most overseas grants are in the range of $15,000 to $35,000 and will be used for everything from expanding parish facilities to buying cars to training women in job skills through to scholarships and books for ordinands.
The largest single grant this year is one of $66,000 to the Iglesia Episcopal do Brasil (Anglican Province of Brazil). Willeen Smith, coordinator of the United Thank Offering on the Episcopal Church
Center staff, explained that the provincial leadership agreed that they would submit only this one request, which will be used to establish a new diocese and an episcopal presence in the federal capital area of Brasilia. "This is a Church that is maintaining its independence in spite of high inflation and terrible difficulties, and this was a project that all the dioceses agreed was necessary," Smith stated. The funds will be used for a residence and car for the bishop.
By contrast, the smallest grant --$500 -- will help renovate rooms so that a Chilton County, Ala., emergency assistance program can set up a collection/distribution center. The grant is small only because the diocese of Alabama was firm in insisting that most support for the project come from local sources.
One of the most unusual grants this year will be used to support the work of a -- shades of colonial days!-- circuit rider in the Diocese of Montana. "When you picture Montana, you get a whole new idea of space," Smith noted. To bridge those distances, the diocese conceived and launched a youth circuit rider project to link the widely-separated young people to each other and to the larger church. Throughout the last school year, the circuit rider drove 8,000 miles, establishing relations with youth groups, linking them up and running youth events in the four deaneries. Smith reported that the "tremendously enthusiastic response" of the youth encouraged the diocese to continue and expand the program this year.
With salary provided locally and a $12,173 UTO grant, the personal visits will be stepped up, and the circuit rider will also work on developing resources and training adults as youth leaders.
While the evangelism, training and building projects that the Offering supports are the staples of mission expansion, the granting committee is also open to more experimental projects that offer a church an opportunity to make a major impact on a region's livelihood. One such is a $44,600 grant to the Diocese of Lango in Uganda which will be used to buy equipment for an edible oils extraction project that is expected to produce a whole new income source for a people deeply beset by economic woes since the reign of dictator Idi Amin.
In addition to direct grants, the Offering also participates in mission through scholarships for women, gifts to women missionaries and support of continuing education for missionaries.
The full grant list has been distributed to diocesan bishops, United Thank Offering and Episcopal Church Women leaders, all grant requestors, and will be available in pamphlet form at the end of the year.