Tag: uto

2018 United Thank Offering Grant Applications

Focus:
Becoming Beloved Community: Racial Healing, Reconciliation and Justice

Friday, February 9, 2018:
Submission deadline for individual parish UTO grant applications.
The applications will be reviewed by the diocesan ECW review committee. All grant applications should be submitted directly to ECW United Thank Offering Coordinator Barbara Longmire by e-mail (UTO^ecw-nc#org) or by regular mail:
1818 Hideaway Lane
Durham, NC 27712

 NOTE:  An email submission may speed up the Committee review process

You may be asked to re-submit your application with the committee’s recommendations.

Friday, February 16, 2018:
Submission deadline to UTO coordinator of edited versions of the selected applications.

Monday, February 19, 2018:
ECW to submit selected applications to the Bishop for final signature.

Friday, March 2, 2018 (5:00 PM):
Deadline for ECW to submit selected UTO Grant applications from the Diocese of NC to the national UTO office.

Links to all forms:

• 2018 UTO Grant Focus and Criteria (critical information)
• UTO Sample Narrative Budget
• Data Regarding United Thank Offering Grant Applications 2014-2017
• UTO 2018 Grant Application (Word)

I blogged earlier about Bishop Curry\’s address at the United Thank Offering Sharing Dinner last Friday.

On Sunday the UTO Ingathering was the focus of the Eucharist service.

Alice Freeman, our UTO Coordinator, represented the Diocese of NC during the traditional parade of the dioceses at the Ingathering (each provincial UTO rep calls the diocesan coordinator forward one by one, and they file across the stage/altar area to greet the Presiding Bishop and president of the House of Deputies.) Here\’s Alice in her UTO blue, waiting with other diocesan coordinators for the procession to begin.

On Tuesday, the national UTO Committee brought their grant recommendations to the floor of the ECW plenary for a vote of adoption. The delegates voted unanimously in favor of the recommendations. Then it was announced the offering collected at Sunday\’s Ingathering totaled $28,168.92, a 37% increase over the offering three years ago.

In all, 63 grants totaling $2,065,472.43 will be made this year.

And yes, the Diocese of North Carolina is on the list of grant recipients. However, I can\’t announce that information until formal notification has gone out.

On Sunday, immediately after the Festival Eucharist and UTO Ingathering, which ran long because of the thousands of people present, I hightailed it from the convention center to the hotel where the Province IV ECW luncheon was being held. Stepping from the bright California sun into the hotel\’s lobby caused momentary blindness, so I didn\’t immediately see who was standing right before me.

Then I heard, \”So I don\’t even get a hello? That\’s a fine howdy.\” Things came into focus and I saw who was talking, Lauren Stanley! Lauren is a missionary of the Episcopal Church whose work is supported by the church women of North Carolina — specifically, the ECW of the Winston-Salem Convocation, and she\’s a frequent visitor to the diocese. In fact, she\’ll be preaching and teaching in Winston-Salem next month before heading off to her new assignment in Haiti.

Lauren was with her older brother and the Rt. Rev. Shannon Johnston, the Bishop Coadjutor of the Diocese of Virginia, her sponsoring diocese.

Seeing the name of my diocese on my name badge, the bishop asked in what part of North Carolina I live. I told him and it turns out he knows the area well. Though he\’s a native of Alabama, his family put the Johnston in Johnston County. They also owned big chunks of Raleigh and Wake County. Well, the story goes on and it\’s a juicy one, involving shady deals and nefarious characters, and fortunes lost and somewhat regained, and a kind of penance that resulted in the giveaway of land upon which now sits a part of North Carolina State University. Devereux Street in Raleigh and the prime real estate around it? That too was part of the Johnston\’s portfolio once upon a time; Devereux is a family name. Easy come, easy go, eh?

None of this, of course, has anything to do with setting the course for the Episcopal Church for the next three years, but it sure was a fun conversation with home folk and down home folk and good all around Episcopalians. Lauren, her brother and the bishop left for their lunch and I headed to one of the hotel\’s ballrooms for mine. It just goes to show you never know who you\’ll run into at General Convention.

L to R: Alice Freeman, Sharon Curry, Lisa Towle and Vivian Edwards

Photo: Beverly RuebeckPresent at the United Thank Offering Sharing Dinner Friday evening were 400 people from throughout the Anglican Communion—including bishops, priests, deacons, ECW members and diocesan UTO coordinators.

Our own Bishop Curry addressed the assembly. Using the 20th chapter of the Book of John as his frame of reference, he continually referred to the sister ministries of the United Thank Offering and Episcopal Church Women as “a mission of witness” sorely needed in “a time of absolute and unprecedented change.”

“If you remember just one word from what I say tonight, it should be this: Go. You know, you won’t find the actual word ‘mission’ in the Bible, but mission is all over the Bible. It’s there because ‘go’ is there and ‘go’ means mission,” he explained.

“And if you take the word ‘go’ seriously, it means you’ve got to trust the Lord. No more is there easy Christianity or easy religion. In a time with religious institutions finding themselves swimming upstream, remember that you don’t need to have all the answers, you just need to have a mission,” he said.

The mission of the UTO, founded and administered by women since 1889, is to further the work of the church that addresses compelling human need by promoting daily offerings of thanks in parishes throughout the Church, receiving those offerings, then distributing that money across the Anglican Communion via grants.

It is a vital ministry, said Bishop Curry. And in a closing that brought the crowd to its feet, he added, “I’m telling you, it makes a difference. You make a difference. So I ask you to continue to go and spread the good news of Jesus. Do not falter. Go and love without abandon! Go and spread his justice! Go UTO! Go ECW! Go!”