Partnering through Grants & Service

Outreach Grants

Church of the Holy Communion, through its Endowment Fund, is blessed to provide Grants to various organizations. In the areas of Poverty, Healthcare, Community, Education, and Hospitality, we committ annually to extending funds to a broad group of recipients with whom we are in partnership.  Our 2010 Grant Partners are:

ALZHEIMER’S ASSOCIATION - Alzheimer’s Association provides education, information, and support for all those in West Tennessee dealing with the devastating effects of Alzheimer’s Disease.  The Association would like to expand its outreach and services to the churches in the Memphis area by mailing out packages specifically designed for pastors, ministers, and congregational care chairpersons.

BRIDGES - BRIDGES seeks to expand its flagship program, Bridgebuilders.  Spanning every economic, racial, geographic, and cultural divide, Bridge Builders demonstrates that given the right learning and experiences, ordinary kids can transform themselves and their communities.  Over the next five years, BRIDGES is committing itself to making the transformation possible for more than three times as many teens as it now reaches each year. 

CARITAS VILLAGE - The Caritas Community is an intentional ecumenical Christian Community located in the culturally and economically diverse Binghamton neighborhood.  The Caritas Village is a coffee shop and cultural arts center that seeks to break down walls of hostility between and among neighboring cultures and to build bridges of love and trust between the rich and those made poor.  The Village also serves as a positive alternative to the street corners for the neighborhood children.  This simple place where community folk come for a cup of coffee and arts immersion is where community gathers to share and form relationships.  The grant request is for general operational support for the coffeehouse outreach.  The Village’s policy is that everyone who comes eats whether they can pay or not, and a recent downturn in giving necessitates the request for extra funds.

CHURCH HEALTH CENTER - The Church Health Center provides quality health care for the working poor, children, the elderly, and the homeless while promoting healthy bodies and spirits for all.  Our services are available to qualified residents of Shelby County, Tennessee.

CITIZENS FOR COMMUNITY VALUES, INC. - Citizens for Community Values seeks to challenge our culture by informing the community, protecting the family, and rescuing the exploited.  The mission of CCV is to inspire, motivate, and mobilize citizens, community leaders and elected officials to take action against sexual exploitation and pornography so that our children and families are protected, victims are rescued and restored, the standard of decency is raised and our quality of life is improved.  CCV serves women who have been trapped in the sex-for-sale industry and their children.  The request is for the A Way Out Program, which seeks to restore and heal women on a psychological, physical, emotional, and spiritual level.

DOOR OF HOPE - The vision of the Door of Hope is “Because all people are children of God and deserve to live with dignity, we open our doors to those in Midtown Memphis who have fallen through society’s safety nets and need compassion and friendship.”  The mission of Door of Hope is “to provide a welcoming place where people living on the streets may come to learn healthy living skills and to build positive relationships with other people.” At the Support Center guest are offered access to showers and laundry services, meals, a telephone, and social services. 

EMMANUEL EPISCOPAL CENTER - The center is requesting funds for its reading/ reading intervention program, a part of its after-school program, Emmanuel Academy.  The goal of this intervention program is for participants who are reading one or more years below grade level and who are experiencing difficulties to move to grade-level proficiency.  Overall, the Academy has three main goals:  1) Impact the educational level of youth through educational enrichment and a scholarship program 2) Evangelize and spiritually impact youth by providing spiritual direction 3) Impact the physical and social health by providing health and fitness activities. 

EPISCOPAL CHURCH WOMEN (West Tennessee) - Centered in congregations, the Episcopal Church Women empowers women to do Christ’s ministry in the world.  The Diocesan ECW Teacher Resource Grant Program is designed to enrich the intellectual, physical, social, and emotional development of underserved youth in K-12 public schools located within the Diocese of West Tennessee. 

HOPE HOUSE - The purpose and mission of Hope House is to improve the quality of life of HIV-impacted children and their families by addressing their educational, social, psychological, and health needs.  Hope House opened its doors in 1995 following two years of extensive research and a community needs assessment by a committee of the Junior League of Memphis.  Funds are requested to offer Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University to mothers of Hope House children during a 13-week period.  Those mothers enrolled in the Hope House housing program will be required to attend and complete all 13 weeks of the program.  Serving up to 15 mothers at a time, Financial Peace University will provide common sense education and empowerment to financially distressed mothers.

METROPOLITIAN INTERFAITH ASSOCIATION - MIFA’s mission is to change the community by helping change lives.  Funds are requested to support the Senior Meals Program and would provide the food for more than 32 Meals clients in our community for an entire year.

MID-SOUTH FOOD BANK - The mission of the Mid-South Food Bank is to fight hunger through the efficient collection and distribution of wholesome food and through education and advocacy.   It serves as the umbrella food distribution organization that serves a network of more than 300 charitable organizations in the Mid-South that distribute food free of charge.  Almost 20,400 people a week, 32% of them children, depend upon Food Bank food for their next meal.  Eighty-three cents of every dollar goes directly to food distribution.  The agency provides food supplies for emergency programs, Second Harvest distribution, day cares, adult and youth programs and their own Kids Café and Kids BackPack program.  Operational expenses include truck fuel and maintenance, freight charges, utilities, insurance, staff salaries and all the expenses of any large warehouse distribution operation. 

THE NEIGHBORHOOD SCHOOL - The Neighborhood School exists to be used by God to bring hope to the most hopeless of inner city children and their families by seeking to lead them to Christ as we nurture them spiritually, mentally, and physically so that they may become productive, self-supporting, and godly citizens.  The school is requesting funds for its After School Enrichment Program (ASEP).  All of the school’s middle school students participate in the program, which promotes the future success of disadvantaged youth by providing leadership and growth opportunities for children at risk who would not otherwise have exposure to these opportunities.

RICHLAND ELEMENTARY EDUCATION FUND (REEF) - Richland Elementary is a Memphis City School located in East Memphis.  It is the purpose of REEF to provide funding for areas that are not covered under the normal school budget.  The three areas of focus for REEF are 1) Student Reading Intervention – paying the salaries of reading tutors  2) Teacher Professional Development  3) Goodwill to the community.  Funds are requested to pay three tutors who will assist, on a daily basis, Richland students who do not meet proficiency requirements in reading.

ST. ANDREW’S-SEWANEE SCHOOL - St. Andrew’s—an Episcopal school in Sewanee, Tennessee—seeks funding for a student from the Emmanuel Episcopal Center in Memphis to attend St. Andrew’s.  Since 1992, the Emmanuel Center has partnered with SAS in living its mission “to provide educational opportunities for those students for whom such experiences might not yet be available.”

ST. COLUMBA EPISCOPAL CONFERENCE CENTER (West Tennessee) - The St. Columba Center is a place apart which offers Christian hospitality in a natural setting for gathering, refreshment, reflection and renewal to strengthen the baptized for the ministry of Jesus in daily places.  Funds requested with help support a summer camp for at-risk children who would otherwise not be able to attend.  St. Columba would also like to broaden one week of the program to allow the smaller parishes outside of Shelby Country to send youth to the program.  Not all of these children would be at-risk.  The camp program facilitates understanding, gives hands on experience working with inner city children and promotes physical, spiritual, and emotional development of both the children and youth involved.

ST. GEORGE’S SCHOOL, MEMPHIS CAMPUS - St. George’s Independent School established the St. George’s Memphis campus (SGM) in 2001 to serve low income urban students in grades PreK-5.  Funds are requested for Camp Dragon, a summer camp pre-K students through fifth graders.  Mornings will be spent supporting academic areas, reinforcing skills and concepts, completing summer reading, as well as preparing students for the expectations of the upcoming grade.  Afternoons will be geared towards student’s extracurricular interests such as dance, writing, drama, art, music, technology, and sports.

SAMARITAN COUNSELING CENTERS - The Center’s mission is to provide a healing ministry of confidential, quality, compassionate and affordable mental health care, crisis intervention, counseling and education for individuals, couples, families, clergy, and congregations of the Mid-South, respecting their values and supporting wholeness of body, mind, and spirit. 

SOUTH AFRICA MISSIONARIES (Heidi Schmidt & Monica Vega serving in Grahamstown) - Since 2005, we have assisted in sponsorship of these two servants who are Appointed Missionaries of The Episcopal Church to work with children/families impacted by HIV/AIDS.

UNIVERSITY COUNCIL OF CONGREGATIONS FOOD PANTRY - The University Council of Congregations Food Pantry, located in St. Luke’s United Methodist Church, is requesting funding for operation expenses.  The Food Pantry provides food to meet the emergency needs of clients referred by MIFA and the Council member congregations. 

WEST TENNESSEE HAITI PARTNERSHIP - The commitment of the Episcopal Diocese of West Tennessee to be in companion relationship with the Episcopal Diocese of Haiti in five ways: education, food, healthcare, learning and water. Our current primary work is with the communities of St. Paul's Church & School Montrouis and St. Vincent's Center for Handicapped Children Port-au-Prince. Through interfaith and ecumenical relationships, we strive to the work of God we have been given to do based on conversation with our friends in Haiti.