The Legacy Gift Committee of New England Yearly Meeting announces the spring 2019 grants for the NEYM Future Fund and the NEYM Witness and Ministry Fund.
NEYM Future Fund
Christine Green, Amesbury Monthly Meeting: to develop digital initiatives and create compelling content to reach and inspire local, regional and national seekers online, with a focus on creating content that authentically portrays Quaker ways, with emphasis on community and appealing to young people. A key component will be micro-videos on Quakers topics and concepts that can be easily viewed and shared by meetings in New England and worldwide. Grant: $6,000
Beacon Hill Friends House: to support their Quaker Learning and Quaker Action programs through funding for the full-time Program Manager who leads BHFH's prolific public programming which fosters spirit-led action for peace and social justice and the spiritual growth that drives and sustains this action. Grant: $10,000.
Burlington Monthly Meeting: to support the Meeting's journey to be in right relationship with the Indigenous Abenaki of Vermont as they create a "Deep Time" exhibit at the Burlington International Airport, showcasing Abenaki history and culture over the past 11,000 years. This project gives direct and dramatic voice to the Abenaki, informing visitors and the general public about the past and present of this hitherto oppressed Vermont people. Grant: $10,000
Cambridge Friends School: to support a consultant for faculty professional development and a seminar series to bring prominent names in the diversity, equity, and inclusion world to CFS to support our antiracist mission. Seminars are open to the general public to further advance this important work. Grant: $10,000
Friends Camp and the Challenging White Supremacy Workgroup: to support an "Equity and Inclusion Training" workshop for Friends Camp counselors and staff, led by dynamic and skilled racial justice leaders, in order to increase racial awareness, to develop skills for facilitating discussions of racial issues, and/or to effectively respond to potential race-based misunderstandings at Camp. Grant: $1,000
Friends Camp: for renovations to the inside walls and windows of the historic Pond Meetinghouse, making it usable for decades to come. This 1807 Meetinghouse serves as a space for art and spirituality programming at Friends Camp. Grant: $7,500
Friends School of Portland: to build a middle-school classroom wing designed to meet Passive House environmental standards to accommodate a steadily growing enrollment, allowing Friends education in northern New England to be accessible to more families of children in preschool through 8th grades. Grant: $10,000
Material Aid and Advocacy Program (MAAP): to support intern Nora Sullivan, from Friends Meeting at Cambridge and the Harvard Divinity School, to witness and work supporting community members experiencing homelessness or living in poverty through material aid, access to resources, and advocacy; and, to pursue outreach, education and build community among local Quakers, the broader community, MAAP, and the community members MAAP serves. Grant: $10,000
Andy Burt, Midcoast Monthly Meeting: for her climate justice ministry and outreach to NEYM monthly and quarterly meetings, Young Friends, other faith groups, and Maine schools. Using her professionally filmed stories of Maine multi-generational climate activists and solutionaries, and complementary workshop materials and film-making toolkits, Andy plans to educate and inspire Friends and others to engage in bold and Spirit-led local actions required to meet the moral challenge of the accelerating climate crisis. The new storytelling product can provide a platform to advocate for climate solutions in the local community and with policymakers. Grant: $4,000
NEYM Israel-Palestine Working Group: to foster comprehension of the constantly shifting political landscape, encourage Quaker and individual action, especially minutes and statements from NEYM and its monthly and quarterly meetings, and ultimately to contribute to a just peace in Palestine-Israel. Grant: $1,500
NEYM Ministry and Counsel and Noticing Patterns of Oppression Working Group: to send two Friends to Beyond Diversity 101, an intensive 5-day workshop aimed at deepening the participants' understanding of how racism and oppression function in ourselves and in society, and giving the participants tools to make changes in themselves and foster change in others, with a goal of increasing the number of people trained in this work and the breadth of their knowledge. Grant: $2,650
Quaker Voluntary Service (QVS): to ensure that the QVS program is considered by any potential applicant who is led to the experience, by ensuring the program is inclusive of economic needs that cannot be met on the simple living stipend provided. QVS will do this in two ways: 1) continue and expand loan support for Fellows and 2) continue experimentation with an identity-driven exit stipend. This will also indicate to applicants that QVS is accessible to them, regardless of class background. Both of these projects involve developing and offering economic justice programming for Fellows. Grant: $10,000
Hal Weaver, Wellesley Monthly Meeting: to support the establishment of the Quakers of Color International Archives and to to transfer the previously awarded $3,000 for the translation of Black Fire: African American Quakers on Spirituality and Human Rights (2011) to be used for this new project. Grant: $7,000
Erica Adams, West Falmouth Preparative Meeting: to continue her ministry to connect communities through new venues and educational materials generating dialogues about Quaker values of peace, inclusiveness and coexistence. The traveling exhibition Respeto/Respect presents photographs by women members of the Chiapas Photography Project, who are from different religious and ethnic groups but working together in Chiapas, Mexico. This grant supports the NEYM repudiation of the Doctrine of Discovery, and supports Indigenous people speaking their truth to power. Audiences for this exhibit and educational guide include NEYM, private (including Quaker) or public schools and colleges, libraries, and cultural institutions. Grant: $5,700
Steve Gates, West Falmouth Preparative Meeting: to support efforts within NEYM to achieve a 10% reduction in personal and meeting carbon footprints over the next year. Steve will work with the NEYM Earthcare Ministries Committee, to assist any NEYM meeting by offering both live and recorded tutorials, and in-person visits where requested by the meeting, covering the use of the footprint and action calculator, as well as answering general questions relating to carbon footprint reduction. Grant $4,250
Westerly Monthly Meeting: to support a multi-year project to reduce the cost of energy and thus the carbon footprint of the historic Westerly Meetinghouse. The final steps being done this year are internal storm windows for the meeting room and adjustments to the furnace. In this small way we hope to make the environment and the world a better place to live and be able to direct other potential funding efforts to additional outreach projects. Grant: $750
Woolman Hill Retreat Center and New England Yearly Meeting: for the 2019–2020 Nurturing Faithfulness Program costs and for scholarship money to support inclusion of Young Adult Friends in this program intended to nurture the spiritual vitality of New England meetings, provide ongoing support for faithfulness, and encourage ministry and witness by Friends in New England and beyond. Grant: $4,000
Witness and Ministry Fund
Kathleen Wooten, Fresh Pond Monthly Meeting: to release Kathleen to travel in gospel ministry in the Quaker tradition among Friends and Friends Meetings in New England, engaging in worship, deep listening, and learning and sharing the stories of faithfulness in the Quaker tradition of traveling ministers. Grant: $9,500
Marian Baker, Weare Monthly Meeting: to support Marian's ongoing ministry of working with Kenyan women pastors to uplift women in Tanzania and Uganda Yearly Meetings, and increase children's religious education. Grant: $7,000
Paul Marino, North Sandwich Friends Meeting: to continue time-sensitive development of a documentary film about the power of forgiveness in the life of 94-year-old Hector Black of the Cookeville Friends Meeting in Tennessee. Forging a deep relationship with the imprisoned killer of his daughter, this Friend offers a profound repudiation of the death penalty. Grant: $10,000
Theresa Oleksiw, Portland Friends Meeting: for her ministry to gather and share the stories of Maine residents experiencing poverty and food insecurity. Grant: $7,250
Future Fund Time-Sensitive Requests
Jacqueline Stillwell, Monadnock Quaker Meeting: to provide travel expenses to serve as an elder for Noah Merrill as he travels in the ministry among Cuban Friends. Grant: $1,000
Oriana Reilly, Beacon Hill Friends Meeting: to travel to Bolivia to work on Climate Change and Peacebuilding with young adult friends at the Friends International Bilingual Center in La Paz. Grant: $1,000
Peter Nutting, Vassalboro Friends Meeting: to travel in the ministry to Intermountain Yearly Meeting Sessions to share his ministry of silent prayer. Grant: $1,000
With these grants, the NEYM Legacy Gift Committee has completed four years of the Future Fund, and has awarded a total of $517,000 for New England Friends work in the world. In fall 2019, the Committee will take a break from reviewing applications to consider management of the remaining balance in the Future Fund, which is approximately $50,000. We will also be reviewing key policies we have developed over the past four years.
The next deadline for the Witness and Ministry Fund will be March 1, 2020. If you have questions about any part of the Legacy grant program, please contact the co-clerks at [email protected].