The Bishop’s Church Emergency Fund (BCEF) provides financial support for church buildings in the diocese needing repairs and renovation, usually with a special focus on emergency and unforeseen needs. Through the BCEF, you can support the critical needs identified by the Bishop.
The second BCEF call of 2025 is for food pantry upgrades at St. Agnes’, Little Falls. You can donate online, or mail a check payable to Diocese of Newark with BCEF Call #2 in the memo line to: Diocese of Newark, Attn: BCEF, 31 Mulberry St., Newark, NJ 07102.
St. Agnes’ Episcopal Church is centrally located in Little Falls, a Passaic County township of about 15,000 residents. Situated near the train station on Union Avenue, the church began in 1896 as a mission of St. Peter’s Church in Essex Fells. Today its red doors and beautiful stone façade welcome worshippers each Sunday at 10 am for the Holy Eucharist. A Latin American congregation also rents the church building for Sunday services. In addition to the church building the parish has a fellowship hall and an education building, both of which are used for a variety of weekday activities.
St. Agnes’ maintains a particularly strong commitment to contemplative prayer and Christian spirituality. As stated on its website, the parish seeks to embody the gospel in each of its members by cultivating the presence of God both “within and without.” In addition to gathering weekly for the Holy Eucharist, members seek to personally experience the inner presence of God and to create a community that offers support for spiritual growth. Toward this end, St. Agnes’ has an active meditation group that meets monthly and is affiliated with the World Community of Christian Meditation.
The Rev. Paul Yoon has served as Priest-in-Charge at St. Agnes’ for the past seven years. Paul holds a degree in Christian education and formation as well as a Master of Divinity degree from Princeton Theological Seminary. “What attracted me most to St. Agnes’ was their robust and active outreach,” he said. “Even with an average Sunday attendance of around twenty, the parish makes a truly significant impact on the local community.”
For St. Agnes’ congregation, extending their mission beyond its walls has come to mean providing tangible assistance to their neighbors through their Food Pantry ministry. As their website notes, this is “where we help to ensure that the basic needs of our neighbors are met with compassion and dignity.”
Bob Dobrowski became a member of St. Agnes’ nine years ago and currently serves as director of its Food Pantry. Though the pantry is officially open on the third Saturday of the month, Bob, himself a retiree, lives near the church and is there most days to receive orders and deal with emergencies. Long cherished by the township, Bob is known to many as the “unofficial mayor of Little Falls.” He is assisted at the pantry by a cadre of 45 devoted volunteers. “The pantry had only been open for eight months prior to my arrival and was a rather small operation,” says Bob. “It’s grown considerably since then and now serves the four surrounding towns.”
At present, the pantry’s greatest need is to make repairs to its physical space. Two years ago, the ceiling collapsed above the freezer, a space about 10 x 15 feet in size. Although a temporary repair is in place, volunteers still cannot enter the area. Exterior roof repairs have been made but the fallen drop ceiling still needs to be addressed. Given the critical importance of the food pantry to the Little Falls community and the parish’s limited financial resources, I ask that you be as generous as you can in assisting St. Agnes’ Church with this expense by way of this our second BCEF call of 2025.
God’s peace,
+Carlye J. Hughes
The Rt. Rev. Carlye J. Hughes
Bishop of Newark
