Is your parish looking for a way to reach out to those in need in the community? Would you like to increase your parish’s understanding of Catholic Social Teaching and our call to solidarity? Do you have the idea and just need a little monetary assistance to get started?
If so, the Diocese of Scranton Office for Parish Life is here to help!
Parish Social Justice Grants are available to every parish in the Diocese and are designed to assist your efforts to reach out to the hurting, the poor and the most vulnerable in our midst. The goal is to empower the parish’s efforts to educate and raise awareness of social concerns and strengthen their resolve to create cultures of encounter and work for justice.
Thanks to generous gifts allocated from the Diocesan Annual Appeal and an existing endowment, parish-based grants of up to $5,000 annually provide individual parish teams with the financial support they need to implement programs dealing with social justice issues directly affecting their local community and/or people of the parish.
Some ideas in which grants have been focused in the past on include:
-Parish Food Pantry
-Hispanic Ministry
-Homelessness
-Care of the Earth
-Care for the Elderly
-Migrant/Refugee Outreach
-Family Outreach
-Legislative Outreach
-Parish Nursing Ministry
-Social Justice Education
-Prison Ministry
-Disability Ministry
Grant applications will be accepted until 5:00pm on Friday, May 31st. The grant committee will notify parishes of their grant status by mid-June 2024.
In 2023, a total of 32 social justice grants were distributed to various parishes across the Diocese of Scranton to fund homeless outreach programs, community meals with the goal of evangelization, ESL (English as a Second Language) programs, and so much more!
You can access the 2024-2025 Parish Social Justice Grant Application here: https://forms.office.com/r/JdUWtnL1Pp