Community Engagement Committee: Meeting Minutes 11/9/22

St. Martin-in-the-Fields Church

Community Engagement Committee

November 9, 2022 Minutes

I. Worship - Carol Duncan

II. Guest Speaker: Annual Report from Jubilee School

Karen Falcon (founder) and Jamila Carter (director) of Jubilee School, located at 47th & Chester in West Philadelphia, spoke about current happenings. The school will celebrate forty-five years of educating children pre-k-6th grade. Karen spoke about project-based learning that they are engaging in. Jamila spoke about the importance of re-engaging parents who haven’t been able to be in the school since COVID. Karen noted that St. Martins has always been a strong partner.

Jubilee currently has 71 students; their largest class this year is 10-11 students. They have an emphasis on the arts and social justice. Most of the students come from the West Philadelphia area. Annual tuition is $5,500 but the majority of students have scholarships through Jubilee, Children’s Scholarship Fund or EITC.

Upon graduation, students attend schools such as a Science & Tech Charter School in Philadelphia, Friends Select, etc. They could use help with expanding their support system. For example, they have limited contacts for fundraising. They also appreciated having community members coming to work in the garden. Karen would also appreciate opportunities for the children to sell their books.

Eric Borgstrom requested an annual report by the end of November.

III. Approval of October 2022 Meeting Minutes & Gorski honorarium

Follow-up from minutes:

• We will be posting our minutes on the St. Martin’s website.
• Kate has received information from Pam Darville of Climate Action Team on the three organizations that the team would like to support. She will email the information to the CEC group.
• The CEC had, through email exchange, approved a payment from the Equipping the Saints line of CEC funds of $500 for Dr. Gorski’s talk.

IV. Updating the CEC webpage on the St. Martin’s Website

Emily Walker will be updating our section of the church’s website. If you are interested in helping with this effort, please be in touch either with Kate or directly with Emily.

V. Financial Report & Funding Requests

Eric sent financial reports in advance as well as a financial update on what checks have been requested and sent. In addition, he shared his efforts to continue to learn about and organize our finances. There was some discussion about clarifying the carryover question.

Carol and Kate will visit Face-to-Face to see the facility and the operation. Eric reminded the committee that we disbursed $5,000 to Face-to-Face as well as $500 each to St. Martin’s and two other churches to support SUPPER and efforts to combat food insecurity.

Tanya expressed concern that the money previously raised for refugee resettlement could be confused with general budget monies.

• The refugee resettlement ministries requested funding from the CEC-Refugee Ministries budget line as follows:

$5000 for NSM

$2000 for Juntos

$1500 Nationalities Services Center

$1000 Church of the Crucifixion

All approved this disbursement.

• Guatemala Ministry requests funding as follows:

Transfer of $2000 from the Guatemala program fund (GCPC)

Transfer of $12,000 from the Scholarship account

From the Crafts account: bank transfer fees of $20

All approved this disbursement.

VI. New Business

December 7: Next SUPPER. Be there!

November 27th: Wreath Making & How to Have a Green Christmas - 9am-noon

Meeting closed at 9:00 pm by Kate Maus.

**Next meeting Weds. Dec 14th @ 7:00 pm (if in person)**