St. Margaret’s endeavors to share God’s love with individuals and communities outside our church. We do this in several ways: we help with missions, we channel church funds toward various charitable organizations, and we encourage parishioners to join us in various hands-on ministries.

In 1997 St. Margaret’s established a grants program tied to the endowment and that program has made grants well in excess of $1 million to programs in Annapolis and around the world. Our endowment blesses us with about $100,000 to distribute in grants each year. Our commission receives grant requests and reviews them carefully. If you are interested in learning more about our process, please contact our Grants Administrator, Elizabeth Winn (Izzy).

• Mission Grant Cover Letter for 2007-8 Process
• Mission Grant Application Form A 2007-8
• Mission Grant Application Form A 2007-8 (Word Doc.)
• Mission Grant Form B Criteria
• Mission Grant Application Form B (Word Doc.)
• Mission Grant Application Form B

Mission Commission

News from the New Missions Commission

St. Margaret’s Church has a new Missions Commission! We’ve been meeting throughout the summer to set up our procedures and goals, kick off our season for soliciting grants requests, and look for opportunities to build on all the great work done by St. Margaret’s previous Outreach Committee and Grants Committee. Bow a unified body, the commission is responsible for supporting, developing and integrating the multitude of St. Margaret’s mission efforts.

In our ongoing work to share God’s love with individuals and communities outside our church, the Missions Commission will primarily focus its efforts on the following priorities:

• Endow the poor and hungry;
• Restore and heal the broken;
• Promote, preserve and sustain the environment; and
• Improve access to educational opportunities.

We are seeking and evaluating our opportunities to provide time, talent and financial support based on these priorities. For example, we are committed to continuing St. Margaret’s support of the Annapolis Area Ministries, Inc. (AAMI). AAMI is a group of Annapolis churches, including St. Margaret’s, that ministers to the homeless and disadvantaged to promote self-sufficiency. Through AAMI, we support the Lighthouse Shelter which provides emergency shelter for men, women and children, as well as the Anchor House transitional housing program. In addition to AAMI, we will be looking for additional meaningful, high impact opportunities to serve our missions priorities. 

World outreach
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.

Local Outreach
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. Outreach Commission members 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 also 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. The Outreach Commission has also 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. Committee members have served on AAMI’s board of directors.

St. Margaret’s Youth Group has its own Outreach activities, participating in fund-raising efforts such as the Lenten Fast, the Souper Bowl and the Heifer Project. They have prepared and served dinners at the Light House Shelter, too.

CAMP ALLEN
July 14-18, 2008
Because of our missions to Central America, St. Margaret’s Outreach Commission has taken a special interest in the growing Hispanic community in this 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.

We could really use some volunteers for Camp Allen this summer. We plan to have Bible stories, arts, crafts, games and more
on Monday and Tuesday with about 25 Hispanic youth, ages 5-12 years old, at the Allen Apartments playground. On Wednesday
we will visit the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC) thanks to Jane Holly, Educational Director. Finally we
spend two days at the Cape St. Claire beach swimming and ending with a pizza party on Friday. Please contact Arvilla Wubbenhorst
at (410)757-6199 or Pam Roth at (410)544-2424 if you or your youth would like to volunteer to help.

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.