Exciting News!

We are overjoyed to share that the United Thank Offering (UTO) of the Episcopal Church is funding the creation of a Spanish language, ethnically sensitive version of Spiritual Care Visitor Training. By training members in LatinX communities, we will be reaching out to those people who are exceptionally affected by Covid-19 yet so often fall through the cracks of our healthcare system.  We are grateful to the UTO for endorsing our vision of spreading effective, healing, nurturing and reconciling spiritual care to people who are struggling, especially in these tumultuous times.

“Choosing which grant applications to fund and not fund is always difficult, but during this extraordinary time of suffering in the global Covid-19 pandemic we had to prioritize mere survival over thriving. As always, if we’d had more money to grant we would have been delighted to fund more the excellent grant projects submitted, so please continue to be thankful and make your thank offerings to UTO.”  Sherri Dietrich, UTO Board President.

Implementation of the project will occur in 3 stages:

-Hiring and equipping temporary staff for field research and needs assessment within target demographic so that training is tailored to community needs–Covid-19-related ministry will be emphasized;

-Creating Spanish-language/culturally-sensitive curriculum for online pastoral care training for LatinX communities, honoring needs/life experiences, everyday realities, and mindful of factors such as economic and health-care disparities;

-Launching and sharing training program with interested affiliated congregations and local communities.

United Thank Offering Funding

The focus of the granting process this year was ‘Recovering with Love and Gratitude: An Episcopal Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic in Local Contexts.’

Every penny given to the United Thank Offering is given away the following year to support innovative mission and ministry in the Episcopal Church. Through the gratitude and generosity of those who contributed through Blue Box donations, UTO awarded about $400,000 in grants during this first round and will do a second round in the Spring of 2021.

The United Thank Offering (UTO) is a ministry of The Episcopal Church for the mission of the whole church. Through UTO, individuals are invited to embrace and deepen a personal daily spiritual discipline of gratitude. UTO encourages people to notice the good things that happen each day, give thanks to God for those blessings and make an offering for each blessing using a UTO Blue Box. UTO is entrusted to receive the offerings, and to distribute the 100% of what is collected to support innovative mission and ministry throughout The Episcopal Church and Provinces of the Anglican Communion.