March 2021

Georgina’s Place is an outreach ministry of St. Andrew’s Anglican Church. According to The Rev. Francis Delaplain, priest-in-charge, it is a great venue for low-cost shopping, a helpful second home for pre-loved goods, and a powerful source of community support for paying-it-forward to those in need.

In 2020, during a global pandemic, the collective granting power of AFC’s Trusts continued to pay-it-forward in ways their benefactors could never have imagined. Here is just one message from AFC’s pay-it-forward mailbag.

In 1996, Kenneth Maguire, 8th Bishop of Montreal (1963–75), entrusted his legacy to AFC. Described by those who knew him as a witty, warm, kind, and generous person, Bishop Maguire had a singular vision for his beneficiaries: that his generosity would benefit them for generations to come.

When “The little Church with the Big Heart” was tasked with installing vinyl siding on its 170-year-old building, warden Jeff Rodgers anticipated that putting a stop to chilly drafts would lower heating costs and make the building feel better. “What I did not anticipate,” says Rodgers, “is how this project would help the congregation to feel better.”

The generative nature of paying-it-forward is, I think, what makes it such a powerful remedy for financial anxiety. In our church, nationally, the best evidence we have of this is the Anglican Foundation of Canada.