Learn more about new partnerships, community-wide events, pilot programs, and the success of our participants.

As many followers of ECS know, Community is one of our 4 core values. The Holy Spirit has a way of working through Communities, through our interconnected nature, silently accomplishing things that go beyond the sum of our individual parts. This is one of those stories.

With the support of Senator Hughes, the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services has awarded a $75,000 grant to Episcopal Community Services to support post-pandemic expansion of services and workshops at St. Barnabas Community Resource Center (SBCRC) that will address the human services needs of the community of the Carroll Park/Haddington neighborhoods as identified in a 2021 community needs assessment. 

The grant funds will be used towards Mental/Behavioral Health services at SBCRC, workshops provided by ECS’ five subject specialists and community partners, and a community development feasibility study.

While speaking of the grant, Soneyet Muhammad, Chief of Programs, said, “What makes this even more enriching and powerful is this is exactly the type of work that we’ve learned communities wanted in this center from our 2021 Community Needs Assessment…we’re here, we’re investing, and with legislative support, we’ll continue to enrich the services that are needed so that people can be stabilized and invest in their mental health.”

Learn more about the grant here:

MLK’s Philly Connections

There are amazing programs in Philadelphia designed to support people who are managing the impacts of poverty. Yet too often, those deeply impacted are cut off from the source that can help.

During ECS’ annual Staff Appreciation Day, a special award was presented to Jasmine Walker, the OST (Out of School Time) Program Manager at Feltonville Intermediate.   

We are in the season of Advent, a four-week time of waiting for the light of the Star of Bethlehem to announce the good news of the birth of Jesus. A light that continues to shine brightly, even in the face of so much darkness across the land.

In my tradition, we are asked to be Advent people. As I reflect on that challenge, I ask myself what it means to be a people of the light.

It would be easy to be overwhelmed by the darkness of poverty, of violence in all its forms, of environmental destruction, authoritarianism, racism, and unbridled greed. Depending on one’s background and resources, the darkness is often seen as someone else’s problem or ignored altogether as walls of privilege, circumstances, and greed give false security from the darkness.

It was Christmas Day, 1949 when Jean Tinney, a 6th grader from Collingdale, Delaware County, walked several blocks to her friend Betty’s house to deliver a small gift. Betty was a classmate of Jean’s living in a home with a foster care provider – the fourth or fifth foster home Betty had known. Jean was disheartened when she found Betty not celebrating at all, but scrubbing the bathroom floor. “It’s what I have to do,” Betty told her. “It isn’t right,” Jean exclaimed to her parents when she returned home. That spring, Betty was sent to the Burd School, an orphanage for girls on Baltimore Avenue.

I'm Jessica Main, Director of The ECS Fund. Starting out as a social work intern at ECS back in 2012, I have loved being part of an organization that makes meaningful change!

Thank you to all who joined us in person and virtually for the ECS Forum on Justice and Opportunity on the benefits cliff! Our moderator and panelists did an awesome job spotlighting this issue, which is one of our Lead advocacy issues.