Alleluia Fund

I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving and successful holiday shopping on Black Friday and Cyber Monday. A day to give thanks, two to get deals – but what happens today? There is a new and growing movement, Giving Tuesday, when non-profits, families, businesses, community centers, and students around the world are coming together for one common purpose: to celebrate generosity and to give. This Giving Tuesday I am supporting the Alleluia Fund for Outreach – and I ask each of you to join me!

This Advent season, the Episcopal Diocese of Newark’s outreach ministry partners will offer a hot meal and warm bed to a homeless man on a cold night, provide diapers and formula to a mother not able to afford them for her infant, encourage an at-risk, low-income student to stay in school, and much, much more.

Jim Walsh grew up in Paterson, NJ, with loving parents who worked hard to provide him every opportunity. After graduating from St. Francis College in Maine with a Bachelors Degree in Sociology and a Minor in Elementary Education, Jim worked for the Division of Youth and Family Services (DYFS), as well as several other several social services agencies supporting children, teens and veterans.

As a member of Christ Church in Short Hills, for the past few years I have been organizing Christ Church’s involvement with the Interfaith Food Pantry of the Oranges (IFPO), which provides supplemental and emergency food to low-income residents of Orange and East Orange most Wednesdays year-round.

Jason, his wife and three children entered one of Family Promise’s New Leaf Transitional Housing program apartments in October of 2013. Having been laid off from his job several months earlier, Jason needed a plan. Working with a Family Promise caseworker, Jason started the research to find a new career path, one that he could build on for the future. He decided truck driving was the route he wanted to take and applied for a Family Promise Break the Cycle scholarship.

Since 2005, Haven of Hope for Kids has provided cost-free country retreats for more than 250 urban families caring for a child with a life threatening illness. Visiting families stay for up to six days in our fully equipped, handicap-friendly cottage. All costs for these visits, including food and transportation, are provided by our mission.

Many of our guest families are sharing a first and last family vacation with their terminally ill child. We would like to share Tierra’s story.

This is the house that Janice built. It has four rooms to shelter her four children, ages 5-15 years. Strings stretch wall to wall on which clothing hangs. Reed mats for sleeping are neatly stowed away beneath a hanging anti-malaria bed net. In the front room she stores a bicycle.

The Apostles’ House in Newark turned 30 years old last January. Founded by six area Episcopal Churches (House of Prayer, Newark; Trinity Cathedral and St. Phillip’s, Newark; Christ Church, Short Hills; St. Luke’s, Montclair; and St. George’s, Maplewood), the agency’s continuing mission is to provide comprehensive social services to homeless and “at risk” families in an environment that enables and encourages self-sufficiency.

We in the Diocese of Newark joyfully celebrate the Easter season by sharing our gifts through the Alleluia Fund for Outreach. Our donation connects us to God's work not only in the familiar confines of our congregations, but also as God is at work in our neighborhoods and communities.