Our congregation has used PHW’s gold status requirements as a framework for implementing activities throughout the year. Our priest, Jonah Kendall, led our health directive through his healthy and active lifestyle and by creating a PowerPoint presentation regarding health and Christianity and presenting it during our adult formation series. We formed a Health and Wellness Committee and established a mission statement for its work: The Health Advisory Committee promotes healthy lifestyles for the St. Philip’s congregation and our Beloved Community through prevention, education and advocacy.
In addition, we now provide health information via our church bulletin and leave further resource materials on our information table. Our Beloved Community event was another success, held in conjunction with neighbor churches and community service organizations. During this event, we provided a healthy meal, health information and services to low income members of our neighborhood, including our immediate neighbor, Urban Ministries. Our garden continues to provide fresh vegetables for all members of our community and we introduced a “garden to table” component during Vacation Bible School this year, teaching our children where our food originates (the whole food) and then letting them make food that they could eat or drink (lemonade, smoothies, zucchini bread, corn on the cob).
Many thanks for the opportunity to improve the health of our church and greater community through a PHW mini-grant.
The success story above was submitted by Lori Ramsey, PHW Liaison at St. Philip’s Episcopal Church in Durham, and under the leadership of Rev. Jonah Kendall. If your congregation would like to put your faith into action by prioritizing the health of your members, please visit the PHW website at www.healthandwholeness.org.
-Willona Stallings, PHW Program Coordinator
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