28/10/2026
Anglican Foundation of Canada
Growing Where We Are Planted
How a six-year partnership is helping one Diocese live more deeply into its vocation.
Since 2020, the Anglican Foundation of Canada (AFC) has provided more than $70,000 in Community Ministries grants across the Diocese of Eastern Newfoundland and Labrador. Those investments have helped the Diocese continue becoming the loving place God is calling it to be—finding new ways to serve its neighbours, strengthen its communities, and bear witness to the Gospel through practical acts of compassion.
The story begins with Home Again Furniture Bank, a community ministry the Diocese helped establish in 2015. Working with local agencies, Home Again furnishes homes for families, newcomers, seniors, and others rebuilding their lives after crisis. The ministry became the catalyst for AFC’s first Community Ministries grant to the Diocese in 2020, marking the start of a new chapter in the relationship between the Diocese and its national foundation.
As Home Again expanded, AFC continued to respond. In 2023, AFC supported Making Dreams Possible, helping provide approximately 130 beds for people who had been sleeping on floors, sofas, and air mattresses. Two years later, Moving Furniture, Transforming Lives helped offset rising transportation costs, ensuring donated furniture could continue reaching households across the region.
By 2025, Home Again had furnished 3,782 homes through partnerships with more than 40 community organizations.
From that beginning, AFC’s support broadened into a wider vision of local ministry. In 2023, AFC awarded a $5,000 Community Ministries grant to Sowing Seeds, Growing Community, transforming twelve acres of underused diocesan land in Goulds into a community farm dedicated to food security and creation care.
The initiative drew support from local farmers and community partners, including Food First NL, the Kilbride–Ferryland Family Resource Centre, the Goulds Lions Club, the Goulds Recreation Association, St. Kevin’s Parish, and the Goulds Community Food Bank. Its purpose was not only to grow food, but also to demonstrate how church land could be used to address local needs and encourage other congregations to consider similar ministries.
By fall 2024, the farm had harvested 1,900 pounds of potatoes and 400 pounds of turnips for local food banks, helping feed nearly 10,000 people.
As the partnership between AFC and the Diocese continued to grow, so did its vision for community ministry expand. Having invested in outreach that restored dignity and addressed food insecurity, the Diocese also began investing intentionally in the next generation.
In 2024 and 2025, the Diocese partnered with AFC through Say Yes! to Kids, raising funds to strengthen ministry with children, youth, and young adults across Eastern Newfoundland and Labrador. Supporting participation in CLAY, the Church Lads’ Brigade, and new opportunities for youth ministry, the campaign encouraged parishes to build on ministries already taking root throughout the Diocese.
By 2025, the Diocese’s relationship with AFC had become about much more than funding individual projects. Each successive initiative revealed another dimension of the Diocese’s vocation. That vocation found its newest expression in the Community Connector, carrying the Church beyond its buildings and onto the streets of St. John’s.
Developed under the leadership of the Rev. Canon Amanda Taylor and in collaboration with outreach agencies, advocacy groups, and government partners, the mobile wellness platform provides meals, housing support, basic health care, assistance with government documentation, clean needle supplies, personal hygiene items, and opportunities for community connection.
“The Community Connector is a safe and welcoming space for street-involved individuals to access holistic wellness and community connections,” says Taylor. “Its purpose is both immediate and enduring. We envision a society where no individual is left behind or overlooked.”
Taken together, these ministries represent much more than a series of successful projects. They tell the story of a Diocese that has grown in confidence, discovered new ways to serve its neighbours, strengthened its communities, and lived more fully into its vocation.
“The Anglican Foundation has been pivotal in the ministry of our Diocese,” says Bishop Sam Rose. “I am eternally grateful to the members of the Foundation for helping us do things we could not otherwise do.”
Dr. Scott Brubacher, AFC’s Executive Director, believes the story in Eastern Newfoundland and Labrador is emblematic of AFC’s evolving mission. “The Anglican Foundation exists to recognize faithful local leadership, encourage innovation, and connect generous Canadians with the ministries that are transforming communities. Eastern Newfoundland and Labrador reminds us of what can happen when these relationships are nurtured over time.”
October is Membership Month at the Anglican Foundation of Canada.
AFC membership helps make stories like this possible—strengthening parishes, nurturing leaders, supporting young people, and helping new ministries take root across the Anglican Church of Canada.
Whether you are renewing your membership, returning after some time away, or joining for the first time, your support helps build the Church of tomorrow today.
Learn more, renew, or become a member
https://www.anglicanfoundation.org/enl/
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