“After 2021’s blizzard of volunteer activity on behalf of AFC, my husband and I find ourselves, back to winter again, in the still and quiet of Advent, reflecting on a year devoted to what some have described as the birth of a youth-focused movement within the church.”
“It feels as if we are at the forefront of a movement: more ready than we have ever been as a church to say without words, but with deeds, that young people matter to the Canadian church, young people have a place here, and can find a spiritual home in which they have room to live and breathe and contribute here.”
The Board of Directors of AFC has approved close to $650,000 in grants and bursaries to 110 applicants as part of its fall 2021 grant cycle. This brings the 2021 grant awards total to more than $835,000, one of the most generous years in AFC’s 64-year history.
“Our ZOOM meetings throughout the pandemic have been extremely productive,” says Dr. Scott Brubacher, Executive Director. “But welcoming some of our Directors back to Toronto feels like a meaningful step toward pandemic recovery.”
“We are deeply moved by this $5,000 gift. The overwhelming response to our fall RFP—more than 80 applicants requesting more than $500,000 in funding—left us with a funding gap that gets a little narrower each day thanks to the philanthropic leadership of Canadian Anglicans.”
When he joined AFC in 2016 as Executive Administrator, Dr. Scott Brubacher says, “Change was in the air.” The Foundation was at the mid-point of a 10-year strategic planning effort. “So many of our plans for the future were rallied around making ministry happen through change-oriented investments.”
An inspired vision that began more than a decade ago is finally becoming a reality at St. Cuthbert’s Anglican Church, Toronto, as the first phase of work on the Bayview Garden project began last week. “This is lovely for our church,” says Ian Beverley, Deputy People’s Warden, and project lead. “St. Cuthbert’s was built in the pastoral care model, and there has long been an interest in trying to make the church more welcoming and open.
“We have to mean it,” insisted the boy. “We have to welcome everyone!” Church signs tend to provoke a response, and this one—The Anglican Church Welcomes You—ignited a sense of urgency in my young friend. For him, the sign was a call to action: for the church to live up to the slogan and cast a wide, all-inclusive net.
The Anglican Foundation of Canada has received an unprecedented wave of applications from across Canada in response to the Say Yes! to Kids Request for Proposals. “In the history of AFC, we have never seen anything like this kind of energy around a grant cycle,” says the Rev. Canon Dr. Judy Rois, Executive Director. “We asked people to imagine more for children and youth in a post-pandemic world, and that is exactly what they did!”
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