Monthly Focus
September
The Outreach Board has chosen to support Fourth Street Clinic for September. The mid 1980s brought an economic revitalization to Salt Lake City’s downtown that included the demolition and redevelopment of many substandard housing units otherwise known as Single-Room Occupancy Hotels (SROs). The SROs were homes to Salt Lake’s lowest-income residents who often worked odd jobs within walking distance as janitors or watchmen. When the roughly 800 housing units were torn down, 1,000 residents were cut off from their homes and jobs. Prior homelessness in Utah was an isolated and temporary phenomenon. Now it can be predictable, intergenerational, and permanent.
Now, 30 years later, Fourth Street Clinic operates with a staff of over 60 and a network of 150 volunteer providers and health professionals. Fourth Street Clinic serves over 5,000 homeless men, women, and children each year — with 25,000 medical, mental health, substance abuse, dental, and case management visits in 2017. The ALSAM Foundation Pharmacy at Fourth Street Clinic dispensed 70,000 medications in 2017, and these numbers continue to increase year over year. You can find more information at: https://fourthstreetclinic.org/
An Update:
Just an update on July's Golden Celery Competition: First Congregational Church won the competition!! Many donations from our amazing congregation added up to 1650 pounds of food and water. Thank you all for your kind, and generous donations!
The Outreach Board has chosen to support Fourth Street Clinic for September. The mid 1980s brought an economic revitalization to Salt Lake City’s downtown that included the demolition and redevelopment of many substandard housing units otherwise known as Single-Room Occupancy Hotels (SROs). The SROs were homes to Salt Lake’s lowest-income residents who often worked odd jobs within walking distance as janitors or watchmen. When the roughly 800 housing units were torn down, 1,000 residents were cut off from their homes and jobs. Prior homelessness in Utah was an isolated and temporary phenomenon. Now it can be predictable, intergenerational, and permanent.
Now, 30 years later, Fourth Street Clinic operates with a staff of over 60 and a network of 150 volunteer providers and health professionals. Fourth Street Clinic serves over 5,000 homeless men, women, and children each year — with 25,000 medical, mental health, substance abuse, dental, and case management visits in 2017. The ALSAM Foundation Pharmacy at Fourth Street Clinic dispensed 70,000 medications in 2017, and these numbers continue to increase year over year. You can find more information at: https://fourthstreetclinic.org/
An Update:
Just an update on July's Golden Celery Competition: First Congregational Church won the competition!! Many donations from our amazing congregation added up to 1650 pounds of food and water. Thank you all for your kind, and generous donations!
Sandwich Making: All Saints Episcopal Church makes sandwiches for St. Vincent de Paul Dining Hall on the third Sunday of every month. (For the month of September only, sandwich making will be on the fourth Sunday, September 22nd.) Sandwiches are made upstairs immediately following our service. Please plan on joining us in this very worthwhile endeavor and for a wonderful time of fellowship. Won't you join us for this gathering and opportunity to serve others?
Thank you so much for participating in this ministry; it is an important part of All Saints'/FCC outreach!
Sandwich Making: All Saints Episcopal Church makes sandwiches for St. Vincent de Paul Dining Hall on the third Sunday of every month. (For the month of September only, sandwich making will be on the fourth Sunday, September 22nd.) Sandwiches are made upstairs immediately following our service. Please plan on joining us in this very worthwhile endeavor and for a wonderful time of fellowship. Won't you join us for this gathering and opportunity to serve others?
Thank you so much for participating in this ministry; it is an important part of All Saints'/FCC outreach!
Check it out:
Local faith leaders gathered at the Utah State Capitol on January 18th in honor of Hunger and Homelessness Day at the legislature.They spoke in support of proposals that might further the goals of reducing homelessness. Our own pastor, Rev. Doug Gray, participated in the event.
Check out the article written by Hanna Seariac for the Deseret News using this link:
https://www.deseret.com/2024/1/18/24042574/utah-homelessness-intiatives-faith-leaders
Local faith leaders gathered at the Utah State Capitol on January 18th in honor of Hunger and Homelessness Day at the legislature.They spoke in support of proposals that might further the goals of reducing homelessness. Our own pastor, Rev. Doug Gray, participated in the event.
Check out the article written by Hanna Seariac for the Deseret News using this link:
https://www.deseret.com/2024/1/18/24042574/utah-homelessness-intiatives-faith-leaders
Gloria Lee (on the left), from the Episcopal Church, and the Rev. Doug Gray (on the right),
from the First Congregational Church of Salt Lake City
photo credit: Scott G. Winterton, Deseret News
from the First Congregational Church of Salt Lake City
photo credit: Scott G. Winterton, Deseret News
Faith, Hunger and Homelessness Day
Rev. Gray’s Remarks
Good morning! I am the Rev. Doug Gray, from the First Congregational Church of Salt Lake City. We were founded in 1865, the first faith community in Utah outside of the LDS church, and from the beginning we recognized the importance of radical hospitality. We shared our building with more than 70 of the longest-serving faith communities and service groups of Salt Lake City—including the Methodists, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, and the Jewish faith community—as they were beginning or growing their lives and service. In our tradition, we remember that as Jesus was starting his ministry, he went to synagogue in his hometown of Nazareth and was given the scroll of the prophet Isaiah. From it Jesus read, “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” (Luke 4:18–19 NIV)
We are here today as faith communities to proclaim this is the year of the Lord’s favor, when we will be mindful of the oppressed, concerned for the hungry, and dedicated to sheltering the housing insecure. We are people of prayer. We pray that our legislators and all Utahns would have hearts filled with compassion, and treat each human being with the dignity they deserve for being created in the image of God. But we also believe prayer and actions must go together—strong faith must find expression in caring for those in most need. The question is not whether there is need, but whether we have the political will to truly make a difference. Today, we call on the legislators and faith communities to turn their compassion into the will to make a difference with hunger and homelessness. With God’s help and our hard work, let us open the deep wells of grace and providence, and make this year the year of the Lord’s favor.
Rev. Gray’s Remarks
Good morning! I am the Rev. Doug Gray, from the First Congregational Church of Salt Lake City. We were founded in 1865, the first faith community in Utah outside of the LDS church, and from the beginning we recognized the importance of radical hospitality. We shared our building with more than 70 of the longest-serving faith communities and service groups of Salt Lake City—including the Methodists, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, and the Jewish faith community—as they were beginning or growing their lives and service. In our tradition, we remember that as Jesus was starting his ministry, he went to synagogue in his hometown of Nazareth and was given the scroll of the prophet Isaiah. From it Jesus read, “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” (Luke 4:18–19 NIV)
We are here today as faith communities to proclaim this is the year of the Lord’s favor, when we will be mindful of the oppressed, concerned for the hungry, and dedicated to sheltering the housing insecure. We are people of prayer. We pray that our legislators and all Utahns would have hearts filled with compassion, and treat each human being with the dignity they deserve for being created in the image of God. But we also believe prayer and actions must go together—strong faith must find expression in caring for those in most need. The question is not whether there is need, but whether we have the political will to truly make a difference. Today, we call on the legislators and faith communities to turn their compassion into the will to make a difference with hunger and homelessness. With God’s help and our hard work, let us open the deep wells of grace and providence, and make this year the year of the Lord’s favor.