Outreach Ministries

St. Paul's outreach ministries seek service that flows from a clear mission, identifying core ministries in the service of God's people. St. Paul's is involved in ministries locally, regionally, and globally. For general information about outreach ministries at St Paul's, please contact the Rev. Ross Kane at 703-549-3312 x19 or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . For information about individual ministries also feel free to contact the person indicated below.

 

Local Ministry

The Angel Tree
St. Paul's Angel Tree is a ministry in which parishioners are asked to collect, wrap, and deliver toys and clothing to families designated by the Alexandria Child Protective Services agency and families of children who attend the Network Preschool.

What you can do: In early December, sign up to support a family or families; later in December, help wrap gifts. Please contact Liza May 703-317-1911 to volunteer.

Alexandria Tutoring Consortium
The Alexandria Tutoring Consortium is a partnership between Alexandria churches and the Alexandria Public Elementary Schools. Volunteers tutor children one-on-one in reading. A St. Paul's parishioner recruits tutors and coordinates our effort with the Alexandria schools' coordinator. Tutoring materials are selected by the schools, and the schools also provide training for volunteer tutors. Scheduling is flexible. For more information, please contact Vance or Julia Hall at 703-683-0298 or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

What you can do: Volunteer to tutor; the only qualifications for a volunteer tutor are a love of reading and love of children.

Alexandrians Living Ecumenically (ALIVE!)
ALIVE! is a nonprofit organization of volunteers from nearly 40 religious congregations and the community working together to help those in need in Alexandria. Founded in 1969, ALIVE! is the largest private safety net for the needy in the city, addressing both short- and long-term needs for those less fortunate in the community. ALIVE! serves over 12,000 Alexandrians annually with shelter; low-cost early childhood education and childcare; financial help for rent, utilities, medical care, and other critical needs; emergency food; and deliveries of donated furniture and housewares.

St. Paul's provides volunteers, donated food, and financial assistance for three or four ALIVE! community projects throughout the year.

What you can do: Volunteer to help with the twice yearly packing and delivery of food and furniture for needy families or donate items such as pots and pans, towels, sheets, dishes, silverware, and blankets. To donate items or to get involved, contact Stacy Carlson at 202-294-4024.

Carpenter’s Shelter
The Carpenter’s Shelter, Northern Virginia's largest homeless shelter, provides free, comprehensive case management services that promote self-sufficiency in an environment of dignity and care to Alexandrians in need.

What you can do: Sign up to cook or to serve dinner at the shelter on the fourth Wednesday of each month. The dinner is prepared in Norton Hall kitchen the preceding Sunday. Giant Food gift cards can also be donated by placing them in the Virtual Pantry in the narthex of the church. Additionally, volunteers can help with a children's program, in the library, or simply answer the phone. Contact Scott Broetzmann at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or 703-304-7947 for more information.

Child and Family Network Services
For over 17 years, the Child and Family Network (formerly the Network Preschool) has been helping families in our community with free, neighborhood-based pre-school programs, parenting education, support groups, workshops, and job training. This preschool serves over 100 children from at-risk families.

What you can do: Help these children succeed in school by helping with reading, arts and crafts, book drives, and clothing drives.

Christ House Dinner
Under the umbrella of Catholic Charities, Christ House serves the homeless by providing housing, employment counseling, meals, and both new and used clothing to those in need. For more than 20 years, Christ House has operated 24-hours a day, seven days a week. Volunteers from St. Paul's prepare and serve dinner to 60-80 people on the fifth Monday of each month. Christ House is located at 131 West Street, Alexandria (corner of West and Prince Streets).

What you can do: Volunteer to prepare and serve dinner to 60-80 people on the fifth Monday of each month. Contact Bob Aulthouse at 703-527-7293 if you are interested in helping.

Food Pantry
Those parishioners who would like to help our Lazarus Ministry will find grocery bags with a wish list attached in the back of church indicating what we need to provide for a family of four for two days. If you can shop for us, great. If not, we can accomplish that task for $25 a bag (label your check Food Pantry in the memo line). Thank you for your support. St. Paul's staff contact for the Food Pantry is Dorothy Pearson who can be reached at 703-549-3312 or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

What you can do: Donate a bag of groceries.

St. Paul's Head Start Program

St. Paul's houses a Head Start classroom, and we welcome all who wish to volunteer.  Volunteers are needed starting in December and early January.  Volunteers assist the teachers and engage the children in the classroom through reading stories, helping chaperone field trips, and assisting with various art projects.  To volunteer please fill out the form found here. 

St. Paul's Green Team
St. Paul's Green Team works to apply a Christian perspective to the relationship between God, humans, and the Earth. The group's mission includes not only practical steps, such as recycling and reducing the carbon footprint of St. Paul’s, but also conscious living and creation care. The Green Team meets the second Thursday of each month at 7:00 p.m. for approximately one hour in the EYC Room, 2nd floor, Wilmer Hall. New members and project ideas are welcome.

What you can do: If you are interested in joining this multi-faceted ministry that has lots of "energy," contact Tricia Rodgers at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or 703-549-1731 or come to one of the monthly meetings.

Lazarus Ministry
The St. Paul's Lazarus Ministry serves the poor and those who are experiencing difficulties because of illness, loss of job, or other misfortune. Learn more about the Lazarus Ministry and how you can help.

St. Paul's Point of Contact:
Dorothy Pearson
703-549-3312
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Meals-on-Wheels
Sponsored by the Alexandria Church Women, Meals-on-Wheels provides a hot and cold meal to over 90 people who are too sick or otherwise incapable of doing their own shopping and cooking. For many of those served it is their only contact with other people that day. For more information or to volunteer, please contact Libby or John Guinn at 703-960-8577 (home), 703-244-9804 (cell), or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

What you can do: Volunteer for this daytime activity on the fourth Wednesday of the month (takes only about 90 minutes).

Northern Virginia AIDS Ministries (NOVAM)
NOVAM provides financial and other support for people affected by AIDS or HIV in Northern Virginia.

What you can do: Provide a Thanksgiving basket, drive a person with AIDS to medical appointments, or help with the annual spring fundraiser.
To help, please contact Karen Grane at 703-780-3988.

Rebuilding Together
The Alexandria Rebuilding Together program is an annual volunteer project focused on repairing the homes of low-income, elderly, and disabled persons. Each year over 1,000 volunteers repair approximately 40 homes and several shelters throughout Alexandria.

What you can do: Respond to the annual request for volunteers in early April. Please contact Attison Barnes at 703-549-1875 or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or Bo Miller at 703-549-1240, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it for more information.

Saturday School
Parishioners may volunteer to participate in the Saturday School Tutor Program at William Ramsey Elementary School from 9 a.m. to noon during the school year. Volunteers may sign up to work one-on-one with children needing reading help. A two-hour training program by a professional reading instructor is provided for tutoring children K-2.

What you can do: Pick a date and sign up to tutor on a Saturday morning.

Regional Ministry

The Highland Education Project (HEP)

McDowell County, WV

The Highland Educational Project (HEP) is a standing mission of the West Virginia Episcopal Diocese in McDowell County, West Virginia.  That county, once thriving in mining and shipping coal, is now among the poorest in America – tucked in the rugged, treed hills and hollers of Appalachia.  St. Paul’s has sent mission groups there annually for more than 30 years.  Our mission is to reach out to our brothers and sisters in need and to repair their homes as best we can, with the time, talents, and resources we bring.  We stay in the county seat of Welch, a town some at St. Paul’s know well and others would learn of were they to read the autobiographical novel The Glass Castle.  The movies October Sky and Rocket Boys also portray aspects of the Appalachian world in which we work.  Through HEP and our engagement, the houses of poor, elderly, disabled, and sometimes dysfunctional families are improved – as is their ability to live more comfortable, safer lives.   Each year those efforts not only make a major, tangible improvement in the life of someone in need but also unite us as parishioners-missioners in a special bond of community.  No skills or tools are required, only a giving spirit.

If you want to contribute in that way and want to profit from the experience and the sense of community the HEP mission provides, consider being a part of this very special, very tangible outreach mission.  In 2012, we will depart in carpools for Appalachia on Sunday, July 29.  Mark your calendars now.   Full and partial-week participation by those 12 and over is possible, with all teens requiring a supervising, accompanying  adult. 

Thanks be to God for the work he has given us to do, to love and serve Him with gladness and singleness of heart.  

Shine as a Light in the world to the glory of God.

Contact:  Bo Miller, 703-549-1240 or email at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Global Ministry

Sudan Ministry
American Friends of the Episcopal Church of Sudan (AFRECS)
AFRECS connects Episcopal parishes throughout the United States that share a commitment to the Episcopal Church of Sudan and its mission. AFRECS builds collaboration around ministries that are most effectively done at a national level, particularly advocacy for peace in Sudan and South Sudan.

What you can do: Pray for the Episcopal Church of Sudan, join the St. Paul's Sudanese congregation in worship at 2:00 p.m. on the 2nd and the 4th Sundays of each month.

Renk Theological College
Renk Theological College is a seminary of the Episcopal Church of Sudan. It trains clergy in practices of ministry, biblical studies, and theology.

What you can do: Pray for Renk Theological College, consider supporting a Sudanese seminary student.

Archbishop Daniel Deng Bul and the Province of the Episcopal Church of Sudan
St. Paul's supports the Archbishop in his work of building up the provincial church in Sudan. The national province plays a leadership role in international advocacy and supporting the ministry of dioceses across Sudan.

What you can do: Pray for Archbishop Daniel.

Episcopal Relief and Development (ERD)
ERD is the international relief and development arm of the Episcopal Church in the United States, guided by the Episcopal Church’s principles of compassion, dignity, and generosity as they work to heal a hurting world. For more information see www.er-d.org.

What you can do: Learn about ERD ministries from their Web site, pray for their work, support them financially.