The Hope Fund 2

On November 13th, 2021, at a special meeting of the Vermont Conference of the United Church of Christ enthusiastically approved the creation of a visionary initiative called the Hope Fund. At that meeting the people of the Vermont Conference also approved the creation of a fundraising team to support this effort. Your fundraising team: Paul Sangree, Elise Foster, Kevin Goldenbogen, Elissa Johnk, Leigh McCaffrey, Andy Nagy-Benson (chair).They raised over $120,000!

The HOPE fund encourages innovation, societal impact and new ministry in our midst. As we near the end of this pandemic and look to the future of a post-pandemic world, our churches need help to imagine new ways to be the church in this new landscape. We live in the most unchurched state in the country, and we look to connect with people who don’t go to church with the Good News of our faith.

The Hope Fund Discernment Team is now in charge of distributing the money.

The Discernment Team is currently made up of

Caryne Eskridge, Chair, Jessica Moore, Dan Haugh, Karen Braeutigam, Paul Eyer, and Paul Sangree.

The Hope Fund Discernment Team is pleased to announce the Guilford Community Church as
the first recipient of a Hope Fund Grant.

Guilford Community Church is creating a park for the residents of Guilford and the surrounding communities. The Guilford Community Park “will feature a 48’x24’ timber-frame pavilion in the old Vermont style, a classic seven circuit labyrinth, a playground for young children, open areas for kicking a ball or throwing a Frisbee, and a campfire pit for singing songs and telling stories. The park will serve as a platform for music and cultural events, a public space for having a picnic or getting away from it all for meditation and relaxation.”(GCC, Hope Fund application). Out of respect for their neighbors’ concerns (and as Robert Frost put it, “Good fences make good neighbors”) the Hope Fund is helping the Guilford Community Church with the construction of a fence on the park’s property line. We are excited to see how this multi-faceted project unfolds. We hope you will make a pilgrimage to the Guilford Community Park, walk the labyrinth and celebrate this amazing project!

First Congregational Church, United Church of Christ is a few buildings away from the four corners of downtown Springfield. We have a high rise senior housing building across the street and the Black River running behind us. We have a green space on the east side of the building that is basically unchanged since the last fifty plus years. It is a raggedy place full of yews, hemlocks, a large maple that hides the entrance and grapevines and Japanese honeysuckle growing everywhere.

Our new mission statement, “We are a community in Christ, called to act with love toward our neighbors.”, gave us a goal to make this green space a place open and inviting to all. We want to invite our neighbors to come and sit in a peaceful place, have conversations, eat lunch or just be in the moment in a busy town.