Continue To Collection

Continue To Collection

The Sinsinawa Mound Collaborative Farm, run by the Dominican Sisters of Sinsinawa, aims to make farming more affordable and accessible for those just starting out in the industry. People with less than 10 years of farming experience can rent a plot of land and equipment from the collaborative and access resources to help them create a business plan.

St. John the Divine Episcopal Church's overnight parking program offers those who are temporarily unhoused a place to stay, typically by camping in their cars or RVs. Recently, the Church partnered with local social service agencies to add three semi-permanent housing huts to their parking lot. Residents staying in the hut have access to amenities in the Church, like a kitchen, and are welcome to stay as long as they need to until they decide to move into more permanent accommodations.

Riverton Park United Methodist Church has become a shelter for people navigating the immigration and asylum process, hosting 200 to 500 people in the past year. The church recently received $500,000 in donations, spending the majority of it on supplies, staffing, legal assistance and other resources and services to continue supporting refugees.

The Diocese of San Joaquin in California worked together with a developer and local utilities to install solar panels at 14 of its locations to make 95% of its energy use renewable.

A Cup of Cold Water is a volunteer collaboration between four local Episcopal churches that has been providing assistance to residents who lost their homes in the recent wildfires through the group’s community outreach program. Since a day after the wildfires started on August 8, volunteers have driven a van around the island to distribute supplies like toiletries, food, clothing, bottled water and other necessities.

St. Martin’s Episcopal Church went carbon neutral. After installing an eclectic heat pump system, the California-based parish regained momentum on a years-long renewable energy path, updated all its appliances to eclectic, and installed another solar array.

Smart Church Solutions specializes in church use, ensuring these large community spaces don’t go underused, particularly in rural areas. To make use of these churches, programs like We Love All God’s Children are using them to provide early childhood education. The program started in 2019 and has since opened 14 centers in churches throughout the state. The program provides school supplies, playground equipment and also trains professional staff to administer the curriculum.

St. Mary’s Episcopal Church in Laguna Beach, California, planted drought-resistant native plants and installed a drip irrigation system on its property to curb wasteful water use. The new landscaping also includes a pollinator garden to support important species.

A Bible translation ministry, unfoldingWord, worked with the Church Growth Project of Chad to translate the Bible into 10 minority languages. The organizations held workshops to train those who speak the language that were interested in getting paid to translate the work, the majority of whom were Muslim, and worked in teams to do so.

High school junior Ezra Beinart founded an initiative that invites Palestinians to speak with young American Jews via video chat. The goal of the project, which has hosted six speakers so far, is to introduce Jewish teenagers to perspectives on Israel-Palestine that they may not be exposed to within their communities.

An insulated shed turned food pantry at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Des Moines, Iowa, is open 24 hours a day seven days a week. Community members can drop off donations or pick up food for themselves at any time for no cost. And the pantry has a refrigerator for perishable goods.

The Carmelite Prisoners’ Interest Organization works to release people unlawfully detained in Nigeria. At the same time, the organization provides legal representation and religious support to those awaiting trial.

Recognizing the Stranger is a faith-based program that provides support and mentorship to immigrant leaders with the goal of building bridges between immigrant and nonimmigrant communities. The initiative has helped immigrants in the church organize "know your rights" events, advocate for expanded tax credits for undocumented workers, and roll out parish ID cards amid a rise in deportations.

Churches in Newburyport, Massachusetts, converted rooms into temporary housing for Afghan refugee families. With support from community donations, the congregations created living spaces and provided the families with necessities like beds and clothes.

In recent years, Jewish day schools such as TanenbaumCHAT in Toronto have worked to make their programs more affordable by leveraging philanthropy to reduce tuition and providing tools to help families calculate the financial aid available to them. In the six years since the program was launched, enrollment in TanenbaumCHAT's ninth-grade class has doubled.

In an effort to uncover decades of abuse allegations at the Christian Academy of Japan, investigators began working with academy alumni who helped push the investigation forward. Over the course of several years, alumni met regularly, clocking thousands of hours of work on the case, meeting with investigators and survivors. When the final report was released in 2021, 72 cases of alleged abuse — including sexual, physical, emotional and child-on-child abuse — were uncovered over a 44 year period.

Church parking lots typically sit empty during the week, making them good spots to place electric vehicle charging stations. Churches in major metropolitan areas across the country have started offering these services which have seen almost daily use. These services also provide a small revenue for the church and helps to spread information about the benefits of switching to electric vehicles and replacing fossil fuels.

Embrace Grace is a 12-week program that supports single parents and women facing unplanned pregnancies and works to coach churches to be more accepting and open their doors and their hearts to those in need, specifically in the wake of the Dobbs. V. Jackson and Roe v. Wade overturn. There are currently about 20 churches across the state involved in the program.

The Philos Action League dispatches Christian volunteers to offer support and solidarity to Jewish communities when antisemitic attacks occur. The organization has more than 2,000 volunteers who have responded to 128 incidents since 2021.

In Nogales, Mexico, La Casa de Misericordia y de Todas Las Naciones provides food, shelter, and education to migrants while they work through the process of applying for asylum in the United States.

The After Dark at All Saints program at the All Saints Episcopal Church hosts community classes taught by volunteers on a variety of topics like cooking and history to provide locals with a means to stay connected during the winter months. On top of building community and fostering connections, the program also raises money for various charities, raising nearly $200,000 over the past decade.

Animal chaplains provide spiritual support, specifically focusing on relationships with animals. Animal chaplains help clients prepare for a pet’s passing and run animal loss support groups, regardless of a person’s religious beliefs or affiliation.

The Tzitzit Project makes Jewish ritual garments typically produced for and worn by Orthodox men in shapes and colors for a variety of bodies and genders to appeal to a more diverse set of people.

The Justice for Magdalenes Research organization is working to spread awareness and gain justice for the survivors of Magdalene laundries in Ireland throughout the 1900s. Women and girls were sent to laundries, kept there against their will, forced to work without pay, and severely mistreated.

Farmer-managed natural regeneration (FMNR) allows local farmers who faced devastation to their crops due to drought to bring their land back to life and aid in reforestation. Over 20 years, the project has regenerated 200 million trees, improved crop yields by 30% and the concept of FMNR is practiced in 29 countries around the world.