The St. Margaret's Missions Commission promotes mission opportunities for parishioners by coordinating volunteer opportunities and administering church funds designated for missions activities. Funds supporting missions activities come from the parish budget and from a generous endowment gift from the late Edwin and Zoe Hall.  The objectives of the Missions Commission are to support ongoing missions activities as well as to facilitate the development of new opportunities emanating from parishioners. 

Our overarching objective is to enable parishioners to answer God's call to mission.  What is God calling you to do?  How can the Missions Commission support that call?

The Commission supports a broad range of missions activities, however our work is centered around the following four mission priorities:

• Endow the poor and hungry with the means to feed, shelter and clothe themselves;
• Restore the ill to health and heal the broken;
• Promote, preserve, and sustain environmental health; and
• Improve access to educational opportunities.

Several ongoing activities contribute to achieving our mission priorities.  If these interest you, please contact the person listed to learn how you can get involved.  Current activities supported by the Commission include:

Local Outreach

• Annapolis Area Ministries -- Lighthouse Shelter and Food Pantry (Bob Baltz)
• Camp Allen
• Holiday sharing
• Back-to-school
• World Outreach
• El Hogar
• Tela
• Guatemala
• Environmental Missions Committee (Amy Windham)

• Endowment Grants
• Parishioner Missions Grants
• Emergency Needs Grants

  Recent Grants Give Local and Worldwide Aid

Our parish has issued 204 grants totaling $1,513,305 from endowment earnings since 1998.

In April 2011, St. Margaret’s Church announced the decision to award 14 new grants totaling $115,000 from a pool of 39 applicants. The twelve parishioners on the Grants Committee read and discussed each one of those applications evaluating whether one or more of the following mission criteria are addressed: Endow the poor and hungry with the means to feed, shelter and clothe themselves; Restore the ill to health and heal the broken; Promote, preserve and sustain environmental health and good practices; Improve access to educational opportunities.

The committee takes into consideration whether applicants demonstrate need, support a new initiative, expand an existing project, or justify short-term assistance for general operating expenses. Applicants must show that their programs have a high probability of success, clearly defined goals, schedules, budgets and committed personnel. The committee also evaluates the urgency of a program and its potential to deliver value in terms of the number of people it benefits per dollar invested. 

Requests are not restricted by location or by a minimum or maximum amount. The focus is on the mission, not on the money. Finally, grants are awarded for one year at a time; follow-up requests must be submitted in subsequent years.

When the field of applicants is narrowed to a manageable number for final consideration, parishioners assigned and trained as liaisons research, contact and visit applicants and sponsoring organizations. In 2011, thirty-three St. Margaret’s parishioners, in teams of two or three, served as liaisons.  Given one assignment each, they made on-site visits, or interviewed applicants by phone, Skype or e-mail.  Written reports of their findings and insights were distributed to the committee members in the week preceding an applicant’s appearance before the committee. In addition, liaisons accompanied their applicant to the committee interviews. 

Applicants were interviewed on four consecutive Tuesday evenings, each getting a half hour of the committee’s time.  First, the liaisons met alone with the committee in order to share their candid observations of the grant request and then they introduced the applicant, who was present in person or by Skype. In most cases, non-regional programs were able to send regional representatives or board members to St. Margaret’s.

Our parish has issued 204 grants totaling $1,513,305 from endowment earnings since 1998. In the early years of the grants program, most applicants were locally based averaging a request size of $5,000. As the grants program has become better known and accessible throughout the world via our website, the number of applicants has increased, as has the average size of the grant request. The largest grant we have ever issued was $40,000. Nine is the fewest number grants awarded in one year and 25 the most (the very first year).

While endowment income has fluctuated, the St. Margaret’s Vestry has remained entirely committed to giving grants. Authorized by the Vestry, the Missions Commission determines throughout the year the division of dollars designated for outreach from both the operating budget and endowment income and sets the annual amount that the Grants Committee can award. The Grants Committee has freedom within the amount to recommend any number of grants.

In final summation to the Vestry in April, Ann Lallande, 2011 Chair of the Grants Committee, reported, “ The work of the Grants Committee is characterized by a remarkable level of consensus both at the beginning of the process, when the committee selects its ‘finalists’, and at the end, when it makes its recommendations to the Vestry. A spirit of fellowship and cooperation infuses the process because members respect each other’s opinions and understand the need for compromise, mutual consideration and good humor. It is the experience of every committee member that the Holy Spirit guides deliberations and transforms a serious responsibility into a joyful and rewarding process.”

Please give thanks to the hardworking members of the 2011 Grants Committee for a big job well done:  Tom Andrews, Fran Becker, Bates Churchill, George Curran, Eric Droof, Barbara Friedmann, Leigh Gruber, Spencer Johnson, Ann Lallande (Chair), Norm Mayfield, Kim Morrow, Caroline Nold                                                                     

The St. Margaret’s Church 14 Grant Recipients for 2011:

The Guatemala Human Rights Commission — $5,000 to support the continued education and emergency care for children of Human Rights Defenders who are living in fear for their lives

CCD-USA (Christian Care Foundation for Children with Disabilities) — $10,000 for Food for Rainbow House and Rainbow Daycare Center serving disabled orphans and special needs children in Thailand, coordinated by parishioner from Christ Episcopal Church, Columbia MD

Partners In Care (PIC) ­­— $5,000 for the New Economic Security/Care Management Initiative for Older Adults in Anne Arundel County navigating low-income senior citizens through assistance opportunities for financial security

Global AIDS Interfaith Alliance (GAIA) ­— $5,000 for Village Women’s Microfinance Program in the Thylo District of Malawi investing in the livelihoods of widowed and abandoned women supporting families.

Formation de Formateurs (Episcopal missioner Kyle Evans) — $9,000 for Phase II of training teachers to train teachers in Haiti in conjunction with the Episcopal Diocese of Haiti and their 250 schools

He Opens Paths to Everyone, Inc. (H.O.P.E.) — $10,000 for leasing distribution space and purchase of basic household needs for families with children in Anne Arundel County transitioning out of shelters and into homes

St. Etienne Mission Building Reconstruction (submitted as a mission project of St. John’s Episcopal Church, Glyndon MD) — $10,000 for reconstruction of the worship and community center destroyed by the earthquake.

The Bates/Annapolis Middle School Chess Program (Jeff Macris parent volunteer) — $5,000 to fund a world-class chess master for instruction and coaching, expanding the piloted program to all grades at two schools giving access to poverty level children

Advocates for Homeless Families ­­(founded by All Saints Episcopal Church)—$4,500 for essential maintenance and utilities at multiple properties used to house homeless families in the Frederick, Maryland area

La Resurrection School, Gros Morne Haiti (submitted as a long term mission project of St. Martin’s-in-the-Field, Severna Park) —$10,000 for construction of a post earthquake new and larger school building operated by the Episcopal Diocese of Haiti

Episcopal Community Services of Maryland (ECSM) —$10,000 operating support for The Ark Preschool that serves homeless children in Baltimore

Samaritan House —$15,000 for renovation to replace a full bathroom in a house used for the live-in treatment program for homeless men with alcohol and drug addictions in Annapolis.

Engineers Without Borders­—Student Chapter, University of Maryland College Park — $8,500 for the water purification project in Ilha Das Pecas, Brazil providing sanitary conditions at the local school and potable water for the island during the dry season

OCHAN — $8,000 to support safe women’s and maternal health at the community clinic in Opac Village, northern Uganda, a long term mission of a Johns Hopkins doctor and his wife.

 Lighthouse Shelter/Annapolis Area Ministries (Bob Baltz: bob@hogbytes.com)

• Donate items for the new Lighthouse Homeless Prevention Support Center
• Cook a meal
• Stock food pantry

Annapolis Area Ministries, Inc. (AAMI)

St. Margaret’s Church is one of the 17 members of Annapolis Area Ministries, Inc. (AAMI), a coalition of area churches that operates the Light House homeless shelter, Anchor House transitional housing, and other services to prevent homelessness.  St. Margaret’s parishioners participate in AAMI’s work in several ways. We help to feed the guests at the Light House by preparing food and serving dinner there on the fourth Sunday of each month. (Another parish group, the Brotherhood of St. Andrew, serves breakfast at the Light House Shelter once a month.) We gather non-perishable food for AAMI’s emergency food pantry, which gives out bags of food intended to feed a hungry family for several days. We also have arranged for children in the shelter or transitional housing program to attend St. Margaret’s own summer day camp, or the camp our diocese operates at the Claggett Center in Buckeystown, providing transportation as well as camp fees.  Two Missions Commission members currently serve on AAMI’s board of directors.  http://www.annapolislighthouse.org/

Camp Allen

Because of our missions to Central America, St. Margaret’s Outreach Commission has taken a special interest in the growing Hispanic community in the Annapolis area. For the last two summers our committee, with the help of some wonderful volunteers, has organized and presented a week of day camp – crafts, Bible stories and other activities – for the many Hispanic children at the Allen Apartments in Parole. Our committee has also "adopted" a family – a Salvadoran woman and her six children, whom we met at the day camp. We are trying to help them in many ways.  (Arvilla Wubbenhurst, arvilla1223@gmail.com) See the Youtube Video above!

Back to School and Holiday sharing programs

Our commission works with the county Department of Social Services in the Back to School and Holiday Sharing programs. In August, we provide backpacks and required school supplies for needy children. Each Thanksgiving and Christmas, we purchase turkeys and hams and coordinate the delivery of entire holiday meals to local families. We also coordinate donations of Christmas gifts for each member of these families. We shared God’s love at Easter, too – by coordinating Easter feasts for families in need.

Since 1997, St. Margaret’s has sent a group of youth and adults to work at children’s shelters in Honduras each summer. Members of our parish have gone on these missions, and we help to gather needed items and provide administrative assistance each year. We also give funds toward other projects in Honduras. We contribute and help raise funds for Episcopal Relief and Development, and we have given financial aid to parishioners with personal missions abroad.

 The EMI provides information and opportunities for the parish to take an even more active role in protecting our local environment. The goals of the EMI are to provide education about what we can do as consumers, support local projects, and pursue ways we can “green” our own facilities and practices.   Activities of the EMI center around the following activities. 

Food

The EMI hosts coffee hour the third Sunday of each month.  Environmentally responsible practices around food consumption are promoted.  Recent coffee hours have featured locally grown foods and vegetarianism.

Water - St. Margaret’s Water Garden

A rain garden was installed on the north (St. Margaret’s Road) side of the church by parishioner Avery Wentworth with the help of Scouts from Troop 382 for his Eagle Scout Project. A rain garden is a garden that captures rainwater and lets it gradually percolate through the soil, rather than being washed straight into a storm drain. The purpose of the garden is to filter out contaminants and sediment which would otherwise go into the Chesapeake Bay. The bed is composed of a mixture of materials that improve drainage (Leafgro, sphagnum moss, and sand), and most of the plants are native to the Chesapeake Bay watershed. The accompanying rain barrel collects rainwater from the church’s rooftop and stores it for later use.

Rain Barrel Demonstration

The EMI hosted a seminar on watershed issues and rain barrel installation.  Several parishioners and others from the community attended the seminar and purchased rain barrels.  For more information on rain gardens, rain barrels, or watershed issues visit www.arlingtonecho.org.

Going Green