St. Louis Association
of the United Church of Christ
(the “Association”)

Hope’s contributions to the Association help with three prongs of the Association budget

• The first is Program costs which include

  • Committee on Ministry

  • Preparation for Ministry

  • Interfaith Partnership

  • In-care Book Grants

  • Church Vitality Initiative

• The second is Administrative costs which include

  • Spring and Fall Meetings (which Hope’s pastors and delegates attend)

  • Travel for Memphis/Little Rock Delegates

  • Contingencies

  • Administrative Expenses

• The third (and largest) is the outreach prong of the St. Louis Association budget which supports numerous local programs and includes

  • Doorways - provides a very intense ministry to a specific group of people. When they opened in 1988, they were a hospice for AIDS patients. Now they are advocates for their clients – helping them achieve the stability they need to live with the disease for many years, even decades. Persons living with AIDS face profound financial, physical, and spiritual challenges. They often lose their jobs, their health insurance, and even their homes. A fundamental concern of Doorways is for the very poor and under-served and those who are homeless. With their help, persons living with HIV/AIDS are able to focus on treating their illness, rather than on homelessness, hunger, and looming financial crisis.

  • Ecumenical Campus Ministry (ECM) - some say that ECM is working to be God’s presence on the Florissant Valley Community College campus. ECM representatives maintain a table across from the cafeteria to minister to students, faculty and staff. They keep a prayer book and pray with individuals about their concerns. They follow up to find out how the person is doing and direct them to other resources when needed. A Bible Study on Sunday evenings is also offered.

  • Isaiah 58 - they have worked since 1970 to meet the needs of low-income individuals primarily in the Shaw Neighborhood and other near South Side neighborhoods through their food pantry, thrift store, utility assistance and job placement assistance. They not only provide food to an increasing number of people in need, but also work to improve the health of their clients through educational seminars on cooking and good nutrition. The computer lab helps clients build their computer literacy skills and produce resumes. A parish nurse helps monitor clients’ health.

  • Joint Neighborhood Ministry (JNM) - primarily a food pantry serving low-income people in the Benton Park area and other near South Side neighborhoods. They also provide financial assistance with utilities, rent, and medicine. They serve a hot breakfast on Wednesdays. At their Back-to-School Fair every August, they provide school supplies and gift cards for shoes, socks, underwear, books and toys to children in attendance plus a barbecue lunch. Through their Adopt-A-Family Christmas Program, families with children are adopted by individuals and churches and are given toys, clothing and food for their holiday dinner. In addition to their many regular volunteers, they offer youth groups from the Midwest the opportunity to spend a week as volunteers providing service and to experience what it is like living in an inner-city neighborhood.

  • Lydia’s House - founded in 1995 in response to the community's need for safe, affordable transitional housing where abused women can have the time, place, and support to acquire the necessary resources to begin new lives for themselves and their children. A full time therapist leads individual and group sessions with all of the residents who receive counseling, are offered legal advocacy, and gain the necessary skills to be productive, independent, and whole human beings. It is the only program of this kind in St. Louis and provides up to two years of housing and support services for victims. It is also the largest program of its kind in Missouri and one of the largest transitional housing programs for domestic violence victims in the country.

  • Neighborhood Houses - serving families in St. Louis has been their mission for almost a century. Neighborhood Houses has concentrated on strengthening children, families and communities through compassion and quality programs. Specifically, they operate the Caroline Mission near the Saint Louis University School of Medicine. Caroline Mission is a Missouri licensed and accredited Early Childhood Education Program facility that provides quality affordable child care for children from 6 weeks to 5 years of age. Their goal is to prepare these children to be successful in kindergarten and beyond. The Teen Moms’ program called Girls Night Out and housed at Caroline Mission works with young women ages 13-22 in weekly sessions and provides support for moms and their children. Neighborhood Houses' after school program is held in five St. Louis public elementary schools. This is a safe environment where their caring staff focuses on the whole child, including educational enrichment, social development, life skills and health and nutrition.

  • St. John’s Community Services Ministry - affiliated with St John's United Church of Christ in north city at N. Grand and Fairground Park. For over thirty years, St. John’s has continued to serve one of the most impoverished areas in the St. Louis Association through its food pantry. The pantry receives large amounts of gifts-in-kind from the Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, many area churches, and Dierberg’s Markets. They have a van that delivers food to those who are totally disabled.

  • Union Communion Ministries (UCM) - works to be a stabilizing force in the St. Louis City neighborhood around Union and Delmar. Three neighborhood churches partner together with their neighbors and work to build a thriving, healthy community to strengthen each other. Community projects and events include town hall meetings with city and neighborhood leaders, a community garden, free summer jazz concerts in Ivory Perry Park, mentoring programs in the local schools, and gift basket giveaways for the needy at Christmas. To keep young people off the streets and out of trouble in the summer, they find positive, enriching, and productive activities for the youth to participate in. At their back-to-school fair, they have a festive picnic and hand out supplies to the neighborhood children. This allows the students to return to school with the items they need and encourages them to succeed.

The Outreach Committee of the Association reviews applications for support, conducts site visits, and makes recommendations to the Association Council. The outreach budget for the upcoming calendar year is approved during the business meeting at the Fall meeting of the St. Louis Association.