All Saints' Episcopal Church

What does the Lord require of you?

“to do justice, to love kindness, and walk humbly with our God.” – Micah 6:8

All Saints' joined the Micah 6 Coalition of University Area Churches in order to coordinate our services and resources more effectively for individuals and families in need. On July 20, 2004, Micah 6 was incorporated and approved as a 501(c)(3) in September. Becoming a nonprofit corporation allows Micah 6 to perform essential activities such as maintaining a bank account and accepting nontaxable donations. It is now also eligible to receive grant funding.

We have two representatives serving on the Micah 6 Council that meets monthly. The council has had two projects this year: The Food Pantry (an extension of Loaves & Fishes) and Winter Freeze Night (our rotation to help is on Friday nights that the temperature is below 34 degrees and wet, or below 32 degrees and dry). The Food Pantry, which is located at University Baptist Church, provides Loaves & Fishes clients with an additional source for a hot meal and opportunity to get food from the Food Pantry. The Food Pantry has expanded its hours to be open on both Thursday evening and Saturday morning. The Pantry is serving over 2000 people each month. Volunteers from All Saints' work at the Food Pantry weekly. Freeze Night provides shelter on very cold nights to homeless youths who participate in the Lifeworks program. Volunteers from All Saints' work on a rotational schedule for Freeze Night. We continue to need volunteers for both of these projects and we ask for your prayerful encouragement for the success of this mission. We receive many requests from the community and we would like to expand our projects to fill these needs.

Volunteers deliver our non-perishable food items and donations once a week to El Buen Samaritano. We are grateful to parishioners for their weekly contributions and ask for your continued support for the coming year. Our goal is to deliver a trunk load, not a sack load, of items each week. 

www.elbuen.org

The Bridge Ministry Team provides a compassionate ministry to those who suffer from the disease of addiction by:

• Presenting education programs aimed at improving awareness of the disease of addiction.
• Offering confidential support to those who seek recovery for themselves or for their loved ones.
• Developing a library of resources and information on organizations to promote recovery.
• Participating in the celebration of personal growth and recovery.

Team members are not counselors, but are a confidential link to community resources.
 

All Saints' parishioners and staff deliver approximately 5,600 meals annually. We have supported Meals-On-Wheels since 1984, by providing noontime food deliveries to Austin's homebound elderly who can no longer cook for themselves. We now have 44 volunteer delivery drivers, organized into teams of four or five members. Each team member is responsible for delivering 12 hot, nutritious meals one day per month. Our delivery driver also offers a friendly "hello" and checks on the person's welfare. Sometimes, our driver is the only human contact the person receives all day.

“As you do it unto the least of these, you do it unto me.”

Loaves & Fishes is a ministry of the entire congregation to less fortunate people in our community. Currently members of the congregation interview individuals on Tuesdays, beginning at 9:00 a.m. and ending when all resources are depleted. 

Many members of the congregation participate by contributing to the purchase of HEB gift cards and by donating toiletries, Christmas cards, stamps, and other items. Another quartet of All Saints' members prepares and brings breakfast tacos every Tuesday around 7:30 a.m. and staffs the "Prayer Room" (aka the Masterson Library). The spiritual help offered in the Prayer Room between 8:30 and 9:00 a.m. is as great as the assistance given with checks or HEB cards. Several parishioners and volunteer clergy offer to listen and pray with clients. 

Congregational giving makes it possible to purchase discounted Capital Metro bus passes and HEB gift cards (which are used for a small payment on food or anything sold at HEB except tobacco, alcohol and the lottery) and for financial assistance. Financial assistance (seldom more than $25 and sometimes less) is given for rent, ID's, birth certificates, prescriptions not available at HEB, out-of-town transportation, glasses, textbooks and work boots. 

Loaves & Fishes serves between 18 and 26 people each week, depending on the amount of assistance available. Clients are served on a first-come, first served basis; therefore, some arrive as early as 6:00 a.m. If there are more people than the allotted number (and there always are), those not served are given the opportunity to return the next week and are assured of being seen first. At times, we have had more than 50 people come and have had to turn some away for two successive weeks. 

Because of the connection with other Micah 6 churches, Loaves & Fishes has participated in a cooperative effort to assist some individuals. Also, information is being shared with regard to ways to help some of our mutual clients more effectively. All Saints' has become a founding member of the Micah 6 Food Pantry, housed in University Baptist Church. Because more food can be acquired through the Food Pantry than with HEB gift cards, clients with large families are directed there instead of being given the gift cards. Also, Loaves & Fishes contributes to the Micah 6 Food Pantry in the name of All Saints' Episcopal Church. 

Another important part of this ministry is to see Christ in the people who come for assistance and to show them options they may have been too overwhelmed to discover. All of us who have personal contact with the clients, however, gain more than they when we observe the strength, perseverance and faith many of them exhibit in handling the difficulties of their lives. 

CONTACT: Please call 512-476-3589 for more information.

Sacred Ground is dialogue series on race, grounded in faith. Small groups are invited to walk through chapters of America’s history of race, racism, and whiteness while weaving in threads of family story, economic class, and political and regional identity. The 10-part series is built around a powerful online curriculum of documentary films and readings that focus on Indigenous, Black, Latino, and Asian/Pacific American histories as they intersect with European American histories.

Sacred Ground is a resource coming out of Becoming Beloved Community, The Episcopal Church’s long-term commitment to racial healing, reconciliation, and justice in our personal lives, our ministries, and our society. This series is especially designed to help white people talk with other white people, while being open to all racial/ethnic groups. Participants are invited to peel away the layers that have contributed to the challenges and divides of the present day – all while grounded in our call to faith, hope and love.