PYM’s Natalie Clifford Barney Fund provides grants to organizations providing family planning, specifically planned parenthood and birth control. Over the course of winter 2021, members of the Quaker Buildings & Programs granting group met several times to discern an impactful use of the funds today.
Grants
Travel & Witness Grant Report: Quaker Travel in New Zealand
In 2019, PYM’s Travel and Witness granting group awarded Jan and John Schmidt, members of Raleigh Monthly Meeting, a grant for travel to Wellington, New Zealand. Jan and John would be staying there under the care of the Wellington Friends Meeting as Volunteer Resident Religious Worker (the official term for their status).
Travel and Witness’ international outreach funds are available to people engaged in promotion of international understanding, justice and peace through travel. Quakers within and outside of PYM may apply. Now in their second year in New Zealand, Jan and John joined Travel and Witness’ quarterly meeting in June 2021 to share their experience. The granting group recorder took wonderful minutes of Jan and John’s account, shared below.
[Read more…] about Travel & Witness Grant Report: Quaker Travel in New Zealand
Anna T. Jeanes Cremation Fund and FEMA COVID-19 Funeral Assistance Available
Featured Photo: The Philadelphia Inquirer – October 1, 1907
Anna T. Jeanes Cremation Fund
Friends are reminded that the Anna T. Jeanes Cremation Fund is available to reimburse cremation costs of members of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting monthly meetings.
Application may be made by monthly meeting pastoral care committees, family members, administrators or executors for a deceased member of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting. Applications may be submitted up to one one year after the member’s death, after cremation costs are paid, and once required documents are available. Reimbursement maximum is $800. Contact PYM grants staff at grants@pym.org for help applying. [Read more…] about Anna T. Jeanes Cremation Fund and FEMA COVID-19 Funeral Assistance Available
Quaker Buildings & Programs Grant Report: Takeaways from Installing a New Roof
Picture of the new roof on Greenwich Friends Meeting’s upper meetinghouse
On March 27th, 2021, Greenwich Friends Meeting successfully completed a four-month project to remove and replace the cedar shingle roof on their upper meetinghouse. PYM’s Quaker Buildings & Programs granting group and Friends Fiduciary’s Tyson Memorial Fund provided grants to support Greenwich Friends Meeting’s undertaking. [Read more…] about Quaker Buildings & Programs Grant Report: Takeaways from Installing a New Roof
Service Opportunities in PYM Grants
There are opportunities for Philadelphia Yearly Meeting members to share in the stewardship of PYM’s granting funds by joining one of our Granting Groups. Every year, the Granting Committee seeks new members to join Granting Groups for a three-year term.
Grantmakers Gather to Celebrate PYM’s Granting Witness on April 1
Granting Committee last week invited members of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting’s Granting Groups – along with Administrative Council members, Young Adult Friend consultants, and staff – to gather online to celebrate those involved in the care and stewardship of the Yearly Meeting’s granting funds and to reflect on their work in the past year. “Celebrating Our Granting Witness” offered Granting Group members from different groups the chance to build community and learn from one another. To begin, Ken Park, clerk of the Granting Committee, led us in a period of grounding worship before passing the spotlight on to Friends presenting on their granting group. [Read more…] about Grantmakers Gather to Celebrate PYM’s Granting Witness on April 1
Moorestown Meeting Support for Computer Literacy Program in Kenya
The following thank you letter came our way from Moorestown Meeting and Youth Promise Kenya. It shows that despite the pandemic, friendships across the world have positive impact, and that human-to-human efforts make a difference in the lives of others. Friends Meetings and Schools in the PYM region engage in many such worthy projects. Please share your stories with us. [Read more…] about Moorestown Meeting Support for Computer Literacy Program in Kenya
Meeting Owl Pro Device: Technology to Support Digital Worship
The pandemic has resulted in technology becoming an essential part of many Quaker meetings as in-person worship came to a stop at most meetings. Philadelphia Yearly Meeting’s (PYM) monthly meetings have had to find new ways to keep the community together through Zoom video calls or Facebook Live videos.
These new ways of worship have had a silver lining; members and attenders not able to typically attend worship in person have been able to join digitally. Digital worship creates a path for long-time members who no longer live near the meetinghouse and seekers new to Quakerism to attend. Many meetings have decided that offering a way for Friends to worship digitally is here to stay, even after a return to meeting in person. For those considering this option, there is technology available to support hybrid forms of gathering that offer a meaningful experience for attending in person and digitally. [Read more…] about Meeting Owl Pro Device: Technology to Support Digital Worship
Tuition Aid for Friends Children in PYM Friends Schools
PYM’s Committee on Friends Education reminds families that monthly meeting members’ children attending or applying to Friends Schools are eligible to apply for educational support for the 2021-22 school year. Funding for all grants comes from the National Friends Education Fund and Philadelphia Yearly Meeting endowment income from the Jonathan Rhoads Fund and other PYM education endowments. [Read more…] about Tuition Aid for Friends Children in PYM Friends Schools
John Martin Trust: Grants for Friends with Financial Need
Purpose and History of the Trust
The John Martin Trust (JMT) of the Monthly Meeting of Friends of Philadelphia exists to aid financially needy Friends in Philadelphia Yearly Meeting. It gives aid through the Monthly Meetings, not directly to individuals.
Elizabeth Simms, a seamstress and once a servant of William Penn, married John Martin, a Quaker tailor. Penn gave Simms the property at 320 Walnut Street in Philadelphia, on which she and her husband built a small stone cottage. John Martin inherited this property from his wife, and at his death in 1702, left it to the Monthly Meeting of Friends of Philadelphia (now at 4th and Arch Streets) to be used to assist poor and necessitous Friends.
[Read more…] about John Martin Trust: Grants for Friends with Financial Need
