Churches

Like mothers everywhere, Tasha Scott is determined to help her kids get a good education. But she faces some special challenges.

Scott, 42, is an unemployed single mother of eight children, currently living in the Apostles’ House shelter in Newark. Her children range in age from 2 to 26. She dropped out of high school when she first became pregnant, having completed the 10th grade.

Two churches in the diocese have followed different paths to a similar destination, raising thousands of dollars in aid for the victims of the recent hurricanes.

At Christ Church, Bloomfield & Glen Ridge, the vestry voted at its September meeting to devote the entire outreach budget to provide matching gifts for hurricane relief – which prompted an unanticipated response from congregations and individuals across the diocese.

This past June, middle and high school youth from Calvary Church in Summit spent an exhilarating week on a “Youth Works” mission trip to Lynn, Massachusetts. Twelve youth and four adults worked five days helping young and old alike through several initiatives.

The first, “My Brother’s Table,” is a local soup kitchen serving over 100 families lunch and dinner. While the youth honed their kitchen skills and learned proper nutrition, they quickly realized the best part of the day was talking with the clients and getting to know them as individuals.

For the fourth Good Friday in a row, the three Episcopal congregations in Jersey City – St. Paul's in Bergen, Grace Van Vorst and Incarnation – joined with local congregations of other denominations in holding a Stations of the Cross at the sites of violent crimes. This year's event received extensive media coverage.

The vision for The Lighthouse came to me after visiting a man in detention at the Hudson County Correctional Facility. I was a new volunteer with First Friends of NY and NJ, and I was assigned to a man named Peter. After waiting nearly an hour to see him, his name was called and I took my seat in the visiting carrel and picked up the phone. Before I could even say “hello” to the person on the other side of the plexiglass barrier, Peter exclaimed that I was his guardian angel.