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Casting a Wide Net
Involving your church in Episcopal Relief & Development’s programs is a wonderful way to do good and build community, both inside your congregation and with the outside world. That was certainly the case at All Souls Church in Berkeley, California, which embarked on an ambitious – and fun – Lenten project to support NetsforLife®.
Carol Anne Brown, an Episcopal Relief & Development Board Member, hoped to find a way for her congregation to support the program. The question was, how? That answer came from parishioner Caitlin Brostrom, who attended an event where she learned about the success of a parish in Seattle, Washington in creating holiday cards and selling them in support of Episcopal Relief & Development.
The congregation took the idea and ran with it, creating a colorful greeting card that celebrated Easter and NetsforLife®. Building on their theme “Casting a Wide Net”, the congregation’s children created colorful pictures of fish to illustrate a scripture passage that speaks to the idea that with His net God “catches fish of every kind.” The images were made into a colorful collage that became the focal point of the cards, which were sold in packets of three.
To add an additional dimension to the “nets” theme, the parishioners made and distributed mesh bags for saving money to support the program throughout the Lenten season. All told the program raised $5,000 in support of NetsforLife®. Each insecticide-treated net distributed by NetsforLife® can protect as many as three people from the mosquitoes that carry malaria. At $12 a piece, they represent an incredibly cost effective way to make a real difference to those in need.
Throughout the project at All Souls, organizers kept the focus on the number of lives their efforts would help save, and they found a creative way to bring home this idea when the campaign culminated on Easter Sunday. The children of the church participated in a festive procession, each holding colorfully decorated cutouts symbolizing ten people who would directly benefit from funds raised to purchase the insecticide-treated nets.
The cutouts decorated the narthex for weeks afterwards, reminding the congregation of the power we all have to make a difference to people we may never meet, but are just as much our brothers and sisters as our own flesh and blood.
