Virginia Episcopalian Magazine Winter 2014 Issue | Page 20

Partnerships to Build Community
Kendall Martin

The mission statement of Trinity Church, a congregation
in Charlottesville, is “to be an intentional, multicultural
Christian community of reconciliation, transformation and
love.” Over the course of the last three years, Trinity has
focused its energy on one of those areas in structuring its
programs, sermons and life within the parish. This past
year, the Trinity congregation, led by the Rev. Cass Bailey,
put its focus on love and how the congregation might reach
out and be involved in the city of Charlottesville.

Bread and Roses is a ministry that helps transform
lifestyle choices surrounding the acquisition, cooking
and eating of food in an urban context. The ministry
came together out of a year-long consideration in which
members of Trinity studied Thomas Keller’s Generous
Justice: How God’s Grace Makes Us Just. Using the book as
a guide, they focused not only on the biblical foundation
of justice, but also on what that justice might look in their
community involvement.

“There’s not only a need to feed people, but to
attempt to address some of the systemic issues behind
that hunger,” said Bailey. “This ministry is really geared
toward transformation, and really trying to change the
way people think and relate to food. We are interested in
long-term and lifestyle changes.”

In the initial phases of the Bread and Roses Ministry,
Trinity raised $70,000 of the $90,000 project total to
renovate its kitchen. The commercial-grade kitchen will be
the hub of the project, offering a place to provide afterschool meals, as well as teach classes on cooking homegrown and farm-produced food.

Trinity has applied for a Mission Enterprise Zone
Grant from the Episcopal Church to fund the second
phase of the project. Read more about this grant
program below.

This second phase of the project will staff a person
one day a week during year one and two days a week
during year two. The role of this staff person will be
to foster partnerships within community and oversee
program development. Trinity has already raised $14,250
toward the grant’s matching target, including funds
from a diocesan Mustard Seed Grant, Region XV and
three other Episcopal churches in the Diocese: Christ
Church, Charlottesville; St. Paul’s, Ivy; and St. Paul’s
Memorial, Charlottesville.

Development of phase two began with a conference
in December aimed at bringing people from the
community and local churches together to talk about the
importance of the ministry and the theological foundation
behind its conception.

Trinity has always had a history of being engaged
in the community. “One of the things we are trying to
do with this effort, given our size and the scope of what
we want to accomplish, we really can’t do by ourselves,”
said Bailey. “We really need to rely on partnerships with
other churches and community organizations. We began
this ministry by really focusing on establishing those
partnerships and relationships with other churches.” t

At the 2012 General Convention, the Episcopal Church established a Mission Enterprise Fund with
the goal to administer grants totaling $1 million from 2013-2015. The potential “zone” is defined as
“a geographic area, as a group of congregations or as an entire diocese committed to mission and
evangelism that engages under-represented groups, including youth and young adults, people of
color, poor and working-class people, people with a high-school diploma or less, and/or people
with little or no church background or involvement.”

Trinity, Charlottesville, is one of several Virginia congregations that applied for a grant, and
50 will be awarded across the Episcopal Church between 2013-2015. Learn more about Episcopal
partnership opportunities at episcopalchurch.org/page/let’s-invent-together.

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Virginia Episcopalian / Winter 2014