The Rt. Rev. Lawrence C. Provenzano, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Long Island has begun the distribution of over 2 million dollars in grants that he announced at the annual diocesan convention in November. The grants will be distributed during 2015 for international, national, and some local ministry efforts.

The grants are made possible by a tithing of the funds from the sale of the former Church of the Redeemer property in Brooklyn.   Bishop Provenzano said that, “Sharing these resources beyond our own needs is living out our Anglican understanding of faithful stewardship as mutual responsibility and interdependence.”

• $300,000 will help support the recovery of the Anglican dioceses of Liberia, the Diocese of Guinea and the Diocese of Bo in Sierra Leone following the devastation and disruptions they have experienced because of Ebola.
• $300,000 is being given to the Missionary District of the Navajoland to support their project already in the planning stages that will result in the district becoming an independent diocese of the church, end dependence on donations from the wider church and free the resources of those dioceses that have supported Navajoland for many years so they can focus on ministry development within their own dioceses.

• $300,000 will help support the re-establishment of St. Barnabas Agricultural College in the North of Haiti and to establish housing and ministry space in direct support of the work of Bishop Suffragan Ogé Beauvoir and the people of the Diocese of Haiti.
• $300,000 will be sent directly to the Cheyenne River Episcopal Mission in the Diocese of South Dakota to fund a full-time second priest for the next four years who will be a youth and young adult missioner and ministry developer in a section of the Diocese of South Dakota that has the highest suicide rate of youth and young adults in the entire country.
• $300,000 will be placed in an established Companion Relationship fund to support the ministry of the Diocese of Torit in South Sudan, the Diocese of Ecuador Central, and our partners in ministry in the Diocese of Cape Coast in West Africa.

• $120,000 will be given to the Long Island Council of Churches, over a three-year period, in support of the Freeport Food Pantry, for the feeding of the poor in cooperation with The Garden at St. Mark’s in North Bellmore.
• $500,000 will be reserved for use by the “remnant” (former members) of Church of the Redeemer as they establish “Redeemer Hall,” a feeding program in their new parish home, St. Luke and St. Matthew’s in Brooklyn.
• Additionally, half of the annual proceeds from the investment income, estimated to be eight hundred thousand to one million dollars, are being allocated for use in Brooklyn & Queens ministries; the other half will be used for ministry development in Suffolk and Nassau counties.

Bishop Provenzano said, “I am pleased that the sale of Redeemer Church property has made this sharing possible. We have huge needs in many parts of our diocese and this has given us an unexpected opportunity to address some of those needs while being mindful of the needs of others.”