Grants Funded at the January 30th Stated Meeting of the Mission & Ministries Commission
In January, Campus Ministry Grants are received. You will note out of a budget of $85,000 the applications funded totaled $65,000. Therefore, the synod is willing to receive additional campus ministry applications for its May meeting. In addition, the synod funded several interfaith grants.
Campus Ministry Grants
Presbytery of Albany
$2,500 — Russell Sage/RPI – Troy Area United Ministries. Since COVID, Chaplain Darren Gundrum has worked both outside and virtually to reach students, both new and returning. Working with student life, he has promoted opportunities and published words of inspiration and encouragement through the weekly newsletter. Opportunities for pastoral care include meditation and mindfulness, student care packages and small group and individual conversations.
Presbytery of Genesee Valley
$5,000 — the University of Rochester – Genesee Area Campus Ministries.
Chaplain and Director Laurie Tiberi. Ministry during spring semester 2020 included sponsoring a lecture on the relationship between science and faith. That event was enthusiastically attended. We were very glad for the opportunity to send a message to campus that PCC is a Christian group that embraces science. Other highlights were Zoom-enabled additions to our regular ministry. For example, in our weekly online “Dinner Dialogues”, we invited some PCC alumni/ae to join us to talk about their life journeys after leaving the U of R, and the role their faith has played in those journeys. Our All Saints Day Zoom worship was enhanced by slides with photos and brief descriptions of students’ family and friends whom they wanted to remember. Compline services, new this semester, were held at 9:00 p.m. every Monday night for just 15 minutes, enabling students to take a brief break from their studies to pray together and listen to a piece of music, all from the safety and comfort of their rooms.
New Brunswick Presbytery
$5,000 — Princeton University – Princeton Presbyterians of the Westminster Foundation. Chaplains/Executive Co-Directors Revs. Andrew and Len Scales grafted in the weekly small groups that used to be on weeknights to after worship via Zoom on Sunday; sent two rounds of care packages to about two dozen students; the seven students on the Undergraduate Leadership Team completed a seminar with Crossroads Antiracism Training and developed an anti-racism reading list; and have plans to stay in touch with students who graduated in 2020.
New York City Presbytery
$2,500 — Columbia University and Others – LaMP. Campus Pastor Rev. Becca Seely. Over the past months, LaMP has sent Spiritual Sustenance Care Packages to students studying across the country and globe. In addition to tasty goodies, each package contains a tactile spiritual practice that students can use to grow in faith “off-line.” This is needed, as student screen fatigue is incredibly high. We sent students prayer beads with guided prayers in early fall. In late fall, the packages contained an Advent Wreath and devotional calendar. Students have reported the difference these simple, incarnate practices have made for their spiritual and mental health. Over the course of this school year, LaMP students have begun to dig deep into the work of anti-racism.
$2,500 — New York University and Others – PriSM Student Ministry. Campus Pastor Rev. Becca Seely. In January 2020, PRiSM students participated in a six-day Faith and Freedom Civil Rights Pilgrimage to the American South. 15 students from PRiSM and LaMP, PRiSMʼs sibling ministry uptown, journeyed from Atlanta to Memphis, visiting sacred sites from the Civil Rights Movement and meeting contemporary racial justice advocates. The trip gave the students a chance to reflect on how faith informs justice work and how God is calling them to be part of making positive change in our world. Perhaps the most exciting highlight of 2020 has been the pilot of the College Student Pantry. PRiSM has partnered with a local congregation’s feeding ministry to launch a food pantry program for food-insecure college students. The college pantry is organized by a student coordinator and run by student volunteers. Open just twice a month since September 2020, the pantry has provided over 200 bags of groceries to students from 12 universities in New York City.
Presbytery of Northern New England
$2,500 — Plymouth (NH) State University – United Campus Ministry at PSU. Ministry Leader Marcia Morris. In addition to providing one-on-one support and a familiar spiritual presence, the Caring Campus Coalition of United Campus Ministry has recently focused on two very important goals: to provide welcome and support to students of color on the campus, and to make recovery support services available to students with alcohol and substance misuse disorder as well as mental health challenges. We have made every attempt to be a reassuring presence on campus, tabling outside in the warm weather with information about local religious resources, support services in the community, and our own phone and email contact information. We even resorted to biweekly sessions of “pet therapy” in the form of walking a crowd-friendly dog across campus, day and night, to initiate and encourage connection to on-campus students in a warm and positive way while everyone remained outside, masked and socially distanced. This has led to some very meaningful conversations with students about the way they are feeling during a very strange and unconventional time.
Presbytery of Susquehanna Valley
$2,500 — Cornell University – Protestant Cooperative Ministry at CU. Chaplain Rev. Taryn Mattice. Some possibilities this coming semester include more interfaith work – a series about spiritual insights for social change. We are hiring a very part-time person to lead an online support group for LGBTQ Christian students we're calling "Queering the Faith."
Presbytery of Western New York
$2,500 — SUNY Buffalo – Campus Church Coalition (Campus Church ConneXion). Campus Minister Rev. Stuart Buisch. While the staff was allowed on campus under certain conditions due to covid19, many students remained home learning virtually. Volunteers were not allowed on campus, making it difficult for us to connect congregations to students. For the students who remained on campus, food insecurity was a real threat, especially for international students and students who were forced to quarantine. As we cannot use congregation members for the foreseeable future, we will use Synod money this year for a feeding/pastoral visitation program for those students in need.
Presbytery of Newark
$40,000-- The synod supports Bloomfield College, the only Presbyterian College within the Synod by providing funds for a part-time Chaplain.
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Total Grant Awarded -- $65,000
Total Budget for 2021 Campus Ministry -- $85,000
Available Balance -- $20,000
Interfaith Grants
For the past few years, the Synod has sought engagement and supported interfaith and ecumenical relations that challenge, resource, and organize the commitments to justice, wellbeing and peace of all. At its last stated meeting, the Synod Commission supported the work of the following interfaith and ecumenical partners:
Coalition of Religious Leaders of New Jersey
$2,000 — to support their 2021 initiative to gather religious leaders from throughout New Jersey to learn and organize around the following areas: housing justice, reparations task force, environmental justice, criminal justice, and police reform
Labor-Religion Coalition of New York State
$5,000 — to support the need and opportunity for community building, leadership development and advocacy, especially in the areas of pandemic response and justice, healthcare and housing. This work is done intentionally by bringing together religious and labor relations. The LRC is also one of the main organizations supporting the New York State organizing of the Poor People's Campaign: A National Call for a Moral Revival.
Maine Council of Churches
$1,500 — to help adapt the traditional, in-person, Maine Faith-Based Advocacy Days, to a multi-part online series.
Massachusetts Council of Churches
$2,500 — to support the council's ongoing response and resources to the health and racist pandemics, focusing especially on food security. MassCC stood in solidarity with the Martin Luther King, Jr. Community Presbyterian Church and the Presbytery of Southern New England after their arson in December of 2020. Among other things, the council hosted a conversation with the Rev. Terrlyn Curry Avery, pastor of MLKCPC, and council staff to discuss the topic, The Black Church + White Domestic Terrorism. You can access that conversation's recording at the council's Facebook page - https://fb.watch/3pg-zB9hQP/
New Hampshire Council of Churches
$2,500 — to further the ecumenical and interreligious work of the council, especially in supporting reliable information to congregations around the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions, antiracism conversations alongside Roman Catholic, Jewish and Muslim communities in the state, building on the council's commitment to curve the substance abuse disorder and encourage recovery, and in organizing a state-wide vigil in remembrance of the soon-to-be 1,000 deaths to COVID-19 in New Hampshire.