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St Luke's Episcopal Church Ministries: Responding to God's Call to serve the community

St. Luke’s-San Lucas Church is a place where people of all backgrounds and avenues of life are welcome to seek assistance in times of need, regardless of their background or faith tradition.

The driving force of our service to the community is our rich Episcopalian worship, which we joyfully share with all who feel moved to join us, yet church membership is not a requirement to benefit from our community relief services. This drive to serve has challenged us to grow and expand rapidly and creatively in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

As the pandemic took hold of our area in the spring of 2020, high numbers of families were faced with unemployment and the resulting loss of income to cover for food and rent expenses and other basic needs, including funeral services of loved ones. As a result, we took steps to meet the dramatic rise in assistance requests to the point that by January of 2021 our food pantry was providing about 20,000 pounds of food to an average of 650 people once per week.

In partnership with the City of Chelsea, we established the Chelsea Funeral Fund which provides $1,700 in assistance to qualified families regardless of creed or reason for death. Additionally, we make available free of charge a non-denominational committal service to such families upon request.

We also established a rent assistance fund that has provided $20,000 in small grants to families facing eviction in Chelsea, and we partnered with a local restaurant to provide $6.00 vouchers to those in need of free meals. This not only helped the recipients of the vouchers, but allowed the restaurant, Bella Isla, to remain in business.

These are some of the ways in which our small church converts prayer into community service.

But we would not be able to do as much without the support of so many generous donors like you who through your gifts provide us with the resources that we need to sustain our labor. May God bless you for your generosity!