Since the 1970's Christ Church has hosted the Community Soup Kitchen, making available the use of the kitchen and dining hall of our parish house five days a week. A non-sectarian charity with an independent Board, the Community Soup Kitchen is the largest organization of its kind in New Haven.  It provides a vital service to New Haven 's neediest, as well as an opportunity for parishioners, local residents, and college students to serve the poor. 

In keeping with our historic connection to St. Andrew's Episcopal Church, in the Newhallville section of New Haven, we have begun an ongoing collection of non-perishable food items for distribution to needy families in New Haven's poorest neighborhoods. The Third Sunday of the Month  is now Food Drive Ingathering- and you are welcome to bring a bag full or just a couple of items to contribute to the Food Pantry at St Andrew's Church. Please see Deacon Carol for details.

“RUN” to Help the Homeless The ‘Midnight Run' is an ongoing ecumenical mission program striving to serve the needs of the homeless poor in New Haven by distributing donated food and clothing throughout the year. The Rev. Carol Archer , parish deacon has scheduled Christ Church to join the “Run” on the first Monday of each month ~ year ‘round . Volunteers meet at 8pm Center Church on the New Haven green. For more info please contact Deacon Carol.

Hello, my name is Will Baker. I began attending Christ Church regularly about two years ago. Since that time, I’ve gradually become involved in different parts of our parish life, all of which have made a profound positive difference in my own life. This morning, I’d like to talk briefly about Christ Church’s community outreach mission – one of the many forms of involvement here that offer us all opportunities for ministry and the development of ourselves and our parish.

We know we live in a very troubled environment. New Haven leads the nation’s cities in the number of shootings per capita. Connecticut’s public school system boasts the largest spending gap of any state in the country between rich and poor students. 34% of New Haven residents under the age of eighteen – over one-third of our children – live below the federal poverty line. Our homeless population is growing. And so many more of us are sick or confused or alone. 

We want to help each other – we want to do something. But, when the overwhelming weight of these problems meets the overbooked schedule many of us must maintain, the effect can be paralyzing, and we often give up trying to figure out where to begin.

Christ Church is working hard to create opportunities for our members to serve our wider community in whatever capacity they can and know that even the most modest efforts will have a genuine impact. To do this, our congregation has developed partnerships with other faith and service organizations in the city that have demonstrated real leadership and effectiveness in their fields. We host a number of service agencies at the church, including the Community Soup Kitchen, which provides free, nutritious lunches five days a week to anyone in need. At the beginning of every month, volunteers from our parish participate in the twenty-year-old Midnight Run program for the homeless, where we help distribute food, clothing, and toiletries to our homeless neighbors on the New Haven Green and the Grand Avenue Men’s Shelter. This activity usually only takes about an hour (and starts at 8:00 in the evening, not midnight) but has great impact. Also once a month, we deliver food that this congregation has donated to the community food pantry at our sister parish in Newhallville, St. Andrew’s, which served some sixty-seven families and individuals last month.

Next week, after church, a number of our parishioners will be participating in the Interfaith Cooperative Ministries’ Cook and Care Walk-a-Thon, a three-mile walk through New Haven benefiting the Community Soup Kitchen and other local organizations. And, this winter, we are greatly hoping to assemble volunteer teams from our parish to join Columbus House and fellow religious congregations in providing care for what is certain to be a major homeless overflow from our city shelters in the cold coming months.

At Christ Church, we are deeply fortunate – blessed – to be situated with very special opportunities for making a real difference in this city and observing the commandment of loving our neighbor. We are located precisely at the intersection of the Yale campus, downtown New Haven, and the Dwight and Dixwell neighborhoods, which allows us to serve as a gateway between these communities and help them share resources with each other. And, as an engaged urban parish in the Anglo-Catholic tradition, we have strength in knowing that the beauty of our liturgy enables and informs important work in the world and that our commitment to radical love outside these walls enriches our worship within them.

In the efforts I mentioned above and others, you are all invited to participate in whatever way you can. If you can donate non-perishable foods to St. Andrew’s pantry or warm clothing, socks, blankets, shaving supplies, or toothpaste to the Midnight Run; if you would like to help sponsor or walk in next week’s Walk-a-Thon; if you have any new ideas or an hour of your time to contribute, it will be sincerely appreciated, and it will matter.

To learn more about any of this, please talk to me, our Deacons, Carol Archer, Alfred Tisdale, or Greta Getlein, or one of our seminarians after the service, and we’ll be thrilled to talk to you.