Dear Friends:
It’s mid-July in New Orleans. Temperatures are in the mid-90s, humidity about the same.
Imagine for a moment that you’re a single mother raising seven children, one of whom is so mentally and physically challenged that she cannot feed herself. She requires medical attention that Medicaid only partially covers. You are sporadically employed at a minimum-wage job.
As winter turned to spring and spring to summer, we have seen a steady stream of folks coming to Jack’s House seeking assistance with their Entergy bills.
The father of these children moved out a couple of years ago, and his child support payments, when they come at all, are often late. You and your seven children live in a poorly insulated house in a marginal neighborhood. You struggle to keep up with your monthly bills, although your oldest daughter now has a part-time fast-food job, which helps some.
Now imagine that your 15-year-old minivan, your only transportation to work, the grocery store, and your children’s medical appointments, breaks down. It’s going to take every nickel of your savings to get it running again. You pick it up from the mechanic and come home.
Here’s your mail. There’s a bill from Entergy that you dread opening. You know you haven’t been able to pay this bill in a couple of months. And there it is: the disconnect notice. No electricity, which means no lights, no refrigerator, no AC in the midst of this brutal New Orleans July.
What are you going to do? You don’t even have enough in your bank account to pay for the week’s groceries. What are you going to do?
This is not a made-up story. This is the life of “Evelyn,” a woman whom we first met at the door of Jack’s House a couple of months ago when she came seeking assistance. She was at the end of her rope.
Thanks to our clergy discretionary accounts, Fr. John Pitzer and I have been able to offer Evelyn some help.
We’ve helped with her Entergy bills to keep the power, including the AC, from being disconnected. We’ve been able to give her a Walmart gift card to buy groceries. I’ve since met her children, including her severely disabled daughter. They are delightful.
We do what we can for Evelyn and her family. Yet her story is the tip of the iceberg.
As winter turned to spring and spring to summer, we have seen a steady stream of folks coming to Jack’s House seeking assistance with their Entergy bills.
Mostly, but not all, are women, many of whom are elderly. For many of these dear folks, losing power and AC in the midst of this unrelenting heat and humidity would be a catastrophic health crisis. So we do what we can.
Now, as a result of this need, your clergy’s discretionary funds have been almost completely drained.
These accounts are replenished every month by the loose offering at each service. Fr. John and I also receive freewill offerings when we preside at weddings and funerals. All of these monies are deposited into our discretionary accounts as well.
Unfortunately, given the need in recent months, our discretionary accounts are almost completely depleted.
Can you help? Yes, you can.
A contribution in any amount to the Clergy Discretionary Funds will be used 100% to support the dear folks in need who come to our door seeking help with utility bills, groceries, medical bills, and the like.
You can give online.
You can write a check to Trinity Church, noting “Clergy Discretionary Fund” in the memo line, and then drop it in the mail or the offering plate on a Sunday. Any amount helps.
You know how in Matthew 25 Jesus says, “Whatever you do for the least of these, you do to me”? This is a Matthew 25 moment. These folks at our door come to us bearing the face of Christ. We dare not turn them away.
Your faithfulness is a blessing to them and to your Trinity community.
Thank you for your consideration of this need.
