Dear Friends in Christ,

On behalf of myself and the Disability Ministries advisory team, I wanted to say “thank you!” to everyone who applied for one of our grants of up to $10,000. We were blown away by the response and interest of so many congregations, camps, and other ministries. If you remember, we said we would take the first thirty applications that came to us into consideration before ultimately choosing five to receive the funding. Well, you all got to work! We received almost double the amount we will be able to consider this time around.

While we are saddened to not be able to consider them all right now, we do encourage those whose applications came in after the cut off to apply again the next time we are receiving applications. I will be in touch soon with those applicants on what your next steps could be for the time being.

To those we will be reviewing: Please be on the lookout for an email to come from me soon indicating that you are moving along in the process. Over the next eight weeks the advisory team will be reading through your applications and making the hard decision to narrow things down to the five who will be the recipients of the funding. That means that shortly after May 1st we will be making and announcing those decisions. For now, please keep a watch on your email and communications for any questions or needs for clarifications that the review/advisory team may need. I will follow up with the other twenty-five and look at possible next steps as well.

Again, thank you so much for your support of what we do at ELCA Disability Ministries. Especially, we thank God for you and the way the Spirit is moving you to make accessibility and equity for people with disabilities a priority in the lives of your ministries.

Peace,

Rev. Lisa E. Heffernan