Episcopal Charities

09/08/2026

✨ Our 2025 Impact Report is finally here! ✨ Here are some highlights:

🎯 Through the faithful stewardship of our donors, $619,000 went to partners changing lives across the Diocese of Chicago in 2025.

🎯We invested over $78,000 in our Catalyst Project Fund in 2025. This investment focused on two of our four strategic areas: Creation Care and Equality and Equity, particularly for our most vulnerable neighbors.

🎯$15,000 went to our partners’ leaders in 2025 through our Inner Capacity Building Program. This support enables them to deepen their spiritual and emotional capacity so they can keep showing up for the communities that depend on them.

Want to read more? Click here to read the full report! https://episcopalcharities.org/news-and-stories/2025-impact-report

09/02/2026

This week, we said goodbye to Wendell Berry, novelist, poet, anti-war and environmental activist, and farmer.

Berry had a sacramental view of the world, seeing signs of God’s grace imprinted throughout the natural world. He believed in the interconnectedness of all life and turned to nature’s beauty for hope, inspiration, and rest.

As today’s worries fill us with unease - worsening signs of climate change, wars that continue to unravel across the world, growing fears of surveillance and the loss of personal privacy here at home, and the environmental risk of new technologies in our communities - Berry offers us wisdom: turn to God’s creation. Find hope in it. Find rest. Be free.

“For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.”

Credits:
Poem: Excerpt from “The Peace of Wild Things” by Wendell Berry. Read the full text at the Poetry Foundation.

Photo: Original photo by Guy Mendes (via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0). Background removed.

08/26/2026

Yesterday, we said goodbye to Dolly Parton, one of the most influential singer-songwriters of our time.

Beyond her musical achievements, Dolly broke down barriers for women in the entertainment industry, ardently supported education and literacy efforts, and befriended and defended the LGBTQ+ community.

Her life reflects her sincere faith as a Christian. And when she faced criticism from the Christian Right for her defense of the most vulnerable, she responded with a reminder for all those who claim to follow Christ:

“We’re supposed to love one another. We’re supposed to accept and love one another.”

It really is that simple.

We miss you, Dolly.

Episcopal Charities is the social outreach arm of the Episcopal Diocese of Chicago, providing grants and support to nonprofits, parishes, and emerging ministries across Northern Illinois.

08/25/2026

St. Andrews Pentecost Episcopal Church is fighting food insecurity in Evanston. 🥪🍎🥫

Their Hands and Hearts community fridge project, supported by an Episcopal Charities Parish Partner Grant, partners with St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church in Evanston and St. Augustine’s Episcopal Church in Wilmette. The fridge will offer their neighbors a place to “take what you need, leave what you can,” no questions asked.

On Sunday, August 23, parishioners, volunteers, and other community members gathered around the Hands and Hearts community fridge to bless the project and its ministry to neighbors facing food insecurity.

Learn more about the grant opportunities at Episcopal Charities! Visit www.episcopalcharities.org

08/20/2026

Today, we reflect on the words written by twelfth century Benedictine abbot, mystic, and theologian, St. Bernard of Clairvaux,

“We taste Thee, O Thou living Bread,
and long to feast upon Thee still;
we drink of Thee, the Fountain-head,
and thirst our souls from Thee to fill.”

Throughout his life, St. Bernard relentlessly pursued encounters with the divine. In his sermons and writings, he regularly encouraged emotional experiences of faith and a personal friendship with Christ through prayer and nature. As he once wrote,

“Rest is in Him alone. Man knows no peace in the world; but he has no disturbance when he is with God.”

Today, in The Episcopal Church, we honor St. Bernard of Clairvaux with the following Collect:

“O God, by whose grace your servant Bernard of Clairvaux, kindled with the flame of your love, became a burning and a shining light in your church: Grant that we also may be aflame with the spirit of love and discipline and walk before you as children of light; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.”

08/18/2026

Episcopal Charities stands behind its ministry partners - non-profit agencies, parishes, and grassroots organizations - to boost them up with financial support and capacity building.

08/13/2026

Tomorrow, we remember Jonathan Myrick Daniels, an Episcopal seminarian who gave his life during the civil rights movement.

After hearing Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s March 1965 televised appeal to come down to Selma to advocate for the right to vote for all citizens, Daniels was convicted during Evening Prayer that night while singing the Magnificat. Then, he knew that he needed to go down to Selma.

Daniels spent several months in Alabama joining picket lines, serving jail time, and being a witness to the world of this nation’s systemic racism, and the complicity of The Episcopal Church. On August 14, 1965, just after having been released from jail, Daniels was fatally shot by a 12-gauge sh***un after pulling his friend, Ruby Sales, out of harm’s way.

Jonathan Myrick Daniels’ sacrificial courage calls us to stand where Jesus stands—in solidarity with the oppressed. May his memory be an inspiration to us all.

08/11/2026

kinda chic to support episcopal charities ngl...

08/06/2026

The Rev. Dr. Pauli Murray teaches us of radical inclusion: “When my brothers try to draw a circle to exclude me, I shall draw a larger circle to include them. Where they speak out for the privileges of a puny group, I shall shout for the rights of all mankind.”

Where in your life, or in your work, do you find opportunities to draw a larger circle? How is the Spirit calling you to shout for the rights of the vulnerable in your community?

Photo credit: “UNCPauliMurray.png” by Carolina Digital Library and Archives / CC BY-SA 3.0 / Flipped and background removed from original / This version licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0

08/05/2026

St. Edward and Christ Church, Joliet, is turning its church grounds into common ground.

Their Fields of Friendship project, supported by an Episcopal Charities Parish Partner Grant, expands its garden and provides programming for food pantry distributions and children’s events for all in the community. On July 30, St. Edward and Christ Church celebrated its “Fields of Friendship Day”, welcoming neighbors and members of the Boys and Girls Club.

This fall, Fields of Friendship expects to harvest pumpkins for their fall community outreach events. This is what community partnership looks like. 🎃🌱

Learn more about the Parish Partner Grant: visit www.episcopalcharities.org!