News from the ELCA

ELCA Deaconess Community Presents Annual Grants, Tithe

CHICAGO (ELCA) -- The Deaconess Community of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada (ELCIC) awarded $250,000 in grants to 13 domestic and international nonprofit programs in an effort to expand the church's outreach to those in need. It also presented the ELCA with a portion of the community's annual tithe.

The grants were awarded to programs that are committed to "risk taking and innovative service on the frontiers of the church's outreach," according to the community's invitation for grant applications. Programs were chosen for inviting participation, bridging divisions and accompanying others in mission "that affirms the individual gifts of all people."

Grants ranged in size from $10,000 to $32,500. Domestic programs in Alaska, California, District of Columbia, Indiana, New York, Pennsylvania and Virginia, and international programs in Kenya, Mongolia, Nigeria and South Africa received the grants. Recipient programs serve people who are uninsured, disabled, homeless, politically disenfranchised, elderly, at-risk youth and immigrants.

Deaconess Community Presents Annual Tithe to Churches

Sister Anne Keffer, the community's directing deaconess, and Sister Carolyn Hellerich, Hallettsville, Texas, chair of the community's board, presented the Rev. Mark S. Hanson, ELCA presiding bishop, with a check for $23,620 on Aug. 7

The community gives a tithe, or 10 percent of the increase of its assets since the previous year, to the ELCA and ELCIC. The ELCIC will receive a check for $5,905

The community's unrestricted benevolence gift is a way of saying "thank you" to the ELCA and ELCIC, Keffer said. "We give thanks that Christ has called the Church into being and that we, as a community, are part of this church," she said.

The Deaconess Community consists of 76 women consecrated by the church to a ministry of Word and service. Deaconesses are theologically trained and professionally prepared for their careers in such settings as health care, Christian education and social services. They are called to ministry by congregations and synods of the ELCA and ELCIC.

Copied from the ELCA News Services Department: http://archive.elca.org/news/Releases.asp?a=3870