St. Paul’s Community Health Clinic receives UTO Grant to respond to COVID-19Posted Apr 30, 2021 |
St. Paul’s Community Health Clinic—a ministry of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Camden and the Diocese of New Jersey—meets the most basic health needs of the very poor in Camden, New Jersey.
St. Paul’s Community Health Clinic—a ministry of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Camden and the Diocese of New Jersey—will receive more than $11,000 in a United Thank Offering (UTO) grant this year.
The focus of the granting process this year was “Recovering with Love and Gratitude: An Episcopal Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic in Local Contexts.” UTO Grants are a ministry of the Episcopal Church.
“I am deeply grateful to the United Thank Offering for their decision to award a grant in support of the St. Paul’s Camden Community Health Clinic which represents a joint project with the Rutgers School of Nursing,” said the Rt. Rev. William H. Stokes, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New Jersey. “This is a ground-breaking project that represents the kind of vital partnership that can have real impact in a community with significant challenges and help us to carry out the mission and ministry that Christ calls all of us to.”
In the economically challenged community of Camden, St. Paul’s Church has been working for decades to feed the hungry through its Sunday food programs, serving two hundred people for breakfast and dinner each week. Although the idea for a health clinic was conceived late in 2019 as part of a more holistic approach in meeting the needs of the poor and homeless in downtown Camden, the pandemic and its disproportionate toll on the poor gave it special urgency.
Partially funded by a Becoming Beloved Community grant, the clinic—operated in cooperation with the Rutgers School of Nursing–Camden—opened on the St. Paul’s Episcopal Church property in January.
“The creation of a health clinic offered our parish a way to meet the most basic health needs of the very poor in our part of the city,” said St. Paul’s rector, the Rev. Z. Mark Smith.
UTO Board President Sherri Dietrich said, “Choosing which grant applications to fund and not fund is always difficult, but during this extraordinary time of suffering in the global Covid-19 pandemic we had to prioritize mere survival over thriving. As always, if we’d had more money to grant, we would have been delighted to fund more of the excellent grant projects submitted, so please continue to be thankful and make your thank offerings to UTO.”
The award of $11,065.18 will be used for start-up and continuing costs for the year. This includes durable and single-use supplies, as well as supervision of the nursing students. The grant will also give the parish and the medical community some time to consider how the new space can best be used in a future post-COVID environment.
“We are very grateful for the support of UTO, Bishop Stokes and our partners at the School of Nursing at Rutgers for their belief that we can and should address inequities in access to basic medical care,” said Rev. Smith.
Episcopal Diocese of New Jersey
Founded in 1785, the Episcopal Diocese of New Jersey, headquartered in Trenton, consists of more than 130 congregations in the southern 2/3 of the state. We have one purpose: To form people as disciples of Jesus Christ so that they can participate in God’s mission of reconciliation in the world. Learn more at dioceseofnj.org
We are a part of the Episcopal Church and the Worldwide Anglican Communion.
United Thank Offering Funding
Every penny given to the United Thank Offering is awarded the following year to support innovative mission and ministry in the Episcopal Church. Through the gratitude and generosity of those who contributed through “Blue Box” donations, UTO awarded more than $400,000 in grants during the second round of grants to address the pandemic.
The United Thank Offering (UTO) is a ministry of The Episcopal Church for the mission of the whole church. Through UTO, individuals are invited to embrace and deepen a personal daily spiritual discipline of gratitude. UTO encourages people to notice the good things that happen each day, give thanks to God for those blessings and make an offering for each blessing using a UTO Blue Box. UTO is entrusted to receive the offerings, and to distribute the 100% of what is collected to support innovative mission and ministry throughout The Episcopal Church and Provinces of the Anglican Communion.
For more information on UTO:
The Rev. Canon Heather Melton
Staff Officer, The United Thank Offering
917.771.3366
Social Menu