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Justice and Outreach Council
Monthly Digest
November 2022
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Welcome to the Justice and Outreach Council (JOC)'s monthly newsletter.
A place to find all the happenings of this active ministry at Trinity.
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JOC’s Annual Grant Gifting
JOC will have approximately $32,000 in our grant account to allot to local initiatives. This year, we committed $2,000 each for 2 years to St. Mike’s, Sarah House, Harding Elementary School, and Transition House, totaling $8,000 again for next year. We voted to fund $5,000 each to CAUSE (Central Coast Alliance for a Sustainable Economy), ILDC (Immigrant Legal Defense Center), and Foodbank of Santa Barbara County for next year. We will be discussing the distribution of the remaining money in November, considering these organizations: Mental Wellness Center, SB/ACT, Planned Parenthood, Showers of Blessing and an organization supporting LGBTQ rights.
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Guests welcome at JOC Meetings
At October’s meeting, we welcomed Karen Claydon, Kaye Cantu, Helene Gardner, and Melissa Moriarty to check out our process. John Draper also attended. Kaye Cantù and Helene Gardner will be joining our council! We are so blessed to welcome them. Come and visit a monthly meeting (the third Monday at 6pm) and consider joining the council. Contact Jeffrey Krutzsch at: jskrutsch@gmail.com for more information.
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Trinity’s Gun Violence Prevention Task Force, a New JOC Committee
Trinity's Gun Violence Prevention Task Force was convened in response to two existing realities - one diocesan, one national: 1) the creation and publication by our diocese of the Gun Violence Prevention Tool Kit on the heels of the mass shooting in San Bernadino in 2015; 2) the recent Bruen decision by the Supreme Court. The former calls on all congregations in our diocese to establish local task forces in pursuit of minimizing and responding to gun violence in their respective communities; the latter prompted our response to the Court's limiting if not eliminating States' abilities to legislate open-carry restrictions.
Almost immediately after its first meeting, the Gun Violence Prevention Task Force sent letters to Governor Newsom and Attorney General Bonta congratulating and thanking them upon the passage of two pieces of legislation aimed at making California an even safer community: AB 2552 and SB 1327. At the same time steps were taken to locate and contact parishes and persons in the Los Angeles diocese who have been continuously active in the issue of gun violence prevention to ascertain actions which might prove most effective for Trinity's task force to take.
The results of these steps are pending.
Respectfully submitted,
Ken Johnson
For more information on the Task Force, contact Ken Johnson at 41omaha73@gmail.com. Please enter TASK FORCE INFO In the Subject line.
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Border Compassion
Border Compassion is a non-profit, faith-based, grassroots effort to respond to the needs of families who have migrated to the USA border crossing at Calexico/ Mexicali. These asylum seekers left their homes to escape violence, poverty and climate disasters. View the photo gallery, watch videos, and learn more here.
Action: If you wish to donate in support of our immigrant neighbors, please send donations to SB ACT and specify "Border Project." or donate online.
Persons interested in crossing the border in January 2023 please contact Laurinda Marshall at laurindax@yahoo.com.
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Santa Barbara Feeding Ministries
Dinner in Alameda Park. Mac McNeel has been volunteering as a server for several months now, and she really looks forward to this experience. “It’s nice being outside in the park. I’ve enjoyed getting to know the volunteers from Trinity Lutheran and the young Westmont students who come. It’s especially nice getting acquainted with some of our houseless neighbors.” To join in this important work, the next opportunity will be on December 22. Check the online sign-up or email Sarah Thomas, sthomas@trinitysb.org.
Transition House. On October 22, Teresa Pietsch and Carrie Hamilton delivered chicken, rice, beans and tortillas from Santa Barbara Chicken Ranch, serving 62 people. The residents loved it. Please contact Teresa Pietsch at teresapietsch4@gmail.com if you would like to get involved.
Bagged, Nonperishable Lunches. Susan and Paul Zink got this idea from their previous parish, to pack nonperishables in a bag lunch and keep them handy in one’s car to pass on when encountering those in need of food. The Trinity Church children helped assemble them as a summer service project, and now the bags are available for pick up at Trinity Sunday coffee hour. Susan told a touching story of her first experience, shyly sharing a bagged lunch, and how blessed she felt to be able to have something to share. Ask her about it!
Warming Center Casseroles Needed. Consider making a casserole for the freezer. You can pick up an aluminum pan during Coffee Hour on Sundays to fill and return to the Trinity kitchen. (Please be sure to label it with casserole name and ingredients.) Frozen purchased casseroles are also welcome. Our first chance to be activated to serve dinner and host an overnight stay in the Parish Hall is the week of Nov 27 - Dec 2. If you'd like to participate in this year's Warming Center volunteer team, please contact Mary Ann Paxton in the church office at 805-965-7419 or office@trinitysb.org.
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Opportunities for Involvement
in our local community, at Trinity, and in the world
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PFLAG Connects: Virtual Support Meetings
PFLAG meets online every month, on the second Monday. Meetings are run by trusted PFLAG Santa Barbara leaders, exploring topics relevant to the LGBTQ+ community, followed by sharing and support. Visit the website for registration information.
Next Meeting: November 14 at 7pm on Zoom
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Adopt a Resident at WillBridge
The holidays are fast approaching and WillBridge is asking for help to make this, a special Christmas for its residents. WillBridge, Adopt-a-Resident program creates a festive atmosphere in each home. WillBridge has five residences housing 37 individuals that transitioned from homelessness with mental health challenges.
The residents begin with submitting a Christmas wish list, decorating their home and Christmas tree. As the holiday approaches they submit a list of all the ingredients for homemade cookies and Christmas dinner. Christmas morning, the residents run expectantly to find their gifts under the tree. The room is filled with laughter and cameras flashing as they rip and toss wrapping paper to see what they received.
For most of the residents the holidays have just been another day with distant memories of any excitement and joy. Your gift of $25 will bring a smile to someone's face and fill the home with laughter. See the flyer and donate here.
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PATH Holiday Dinner: Volunteers Needed
Wednesday, December 21
PATH's holiday dinner will be their big event of the season. A team is in place to hand out all the presents. They are in need of 4-6 volunteers to serve dinner, arriving at 5pm and helping till 7:30pm with set-up, last minute food prep, serving dinner, and clean-up. Not all volunteers will be needed on the food line, some will be needed in the back of the kitchen.
Support is needed throughout the holiday season with dinner meals. If you are interested in volunteering, please contact:
John "JB" Bowlin, Associate Director of Philanthropy & Community Affairs at PATH Santa Barbara, (805) 979-8710, JohnB@epath.org.
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Freedom to Choose: Volunteer with Us!
Kathryn Dean, JOC member, recently started as a reader for this wonderful project that teaches life skills to the incarcerated community to reduce recidivism. Freedom to Choose (FTC) is all about redemption and the power of second chances. We assist men and women in stepping free of past identifications as “criminals” and re-identifying themselves as valuable members of society. If you have questions, please contact Kathryn Dean at kcdean311@gmail.com or The Freedom to Choose Project. (Click the image to view the flyer.)
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Every month we publish a story of justice, ministry and volunteerism from a Trinity parishioner. This month we feature one of our long-time Trinity members, Jim Micallef. His story offers an interesting history of folks and service at Trinity.
It all began in 2005 when my wife, M.K., came home one Sunday and said she thought we may have found a church that I would find acceptable. She said that the church had a female priest, Anne Howard, in the sanctuary! That church was Trinity Episcopal. The next Sunday, the both of us attended the eight o’clock service, and we have stayed with it ever since. Keep reading to learn more about Jim's time here at Trinity.
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This is one of the many reasons Trinity JOC supports CAUSE.
Members of Santa Barbara Tenants Union, CAUSE Push for Tenant Protections and Rent Control
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Celebrate and Support Justice | |
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Look for the blue celebration envelopes in the pews!
CELEBRATE!...a birthday, an anniversary, a special event of any sort for which you are thankful.
Turn your “celebration” into a donation to the Justice and Outreach Council. We will use these funds to provide comfort and safety to those in need—food, education for children, assistance to immigrants—any of our neighbors needing support . . . so they can celebrate. Together, these gifts make possible our community of welcome, reconciliation and service.
Thank you to Sarah Fenstermaker, Michael & Kathryn Dean, Nollie Lei Dawson, Irene Marsi, Jeannie Christensen, and Jean Lange Davis who made donations in September and October.
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The Justice and Outreach Council (JOC) continues its important work in our community and beyond. Funding for the JOC comes from your pledges and Celebration offerings. The JOC’s funding is part of our annual operating budget where five percent (5%) of all pledges received during the year is put in the JOC account. As pledge income has remained steady this year, these funds continue to be set aside for justice work.
There are two ways you can continue to celebrate and support our justice work in addition to your pledges both now and in the future. You can send in a check made out to Trinity and simply note “Justice” in the memo line and provide the names of the persons or occasion you want to celebrate. You can also donate via Trinity’s PayPal account, select "Justice Fund" and under “special instructions” provide the names of the persons or occasion you want to celebrate.
Thank you for supporting our justice work through your pledges, donations, prayers, and most of all, the work you do in your lives to make this a more loving, peaceful, and just world.
Kathryn Dean, JOC
Michael Dean, Treasurer
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Land Acknowledgement
The JOC committee devised this Land Acknowledgment statement to be read before meetings at Trinity.
We honor and acknowledge the Chumash people, the traditional custodians of this land, and pay our respects to the Chumash elders, past, present, and future, who call this land on which we sit their home. We appreciate their wisdom, their culture, and their presence among us today as the host people of this land. We lament the injustices done to the original inhabitants and the injustices done to this land in the centuries since. We seek the courage and wisdom to heal the wounds of the past and build a better future together, in deep solidarity.
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