SEATTLE – The archdiocese’s outreach to cargo ship workers, the poor, immigrants and refugees are among eight Catholic nonprofit ministries being supported through the inaugural round of grants from the St. Joseph Foundation.

“We are beyond relieved and grateful” for the two-year, $156,000 grant that will fund an executive director for the Seattle Seafarers Center, said Joe Cotton, the archdiocese’s pastoral care and outreach director. The center, which meets the spiritual and practical needs of ship workers arriving at local ports, was limited in its outreach during the pandemic. This grant will help in “revitalizing our cherished ecumenical port mission and ensuring a sustained future,” Cotton said.

The largest grant, $1 million over five years, will support the Catholic Healthcare Collaboration, an innovative partnership of the archdiocese, Catholic Community Services and Catholic Housing Services of Western Washington, and local Catholic hospitals including PeaceHealth, Providence and Virginia Mason Franciscan Health. Announced in May 2022, the collaboration blends social services and health care expertise to better serve the poor. The collaboration’s first planned projects will assist homeless people discharged from hospitals, community members who have difficulty accessing health care, and asylum seekers.

“I am immensely grateful for the donors who support our archdiocesan ministries, and especially grateful for the St. Joseph Foundation, which allows us to support others in their efforts to advance the mission of Christ in the church and world today,” Archbishop Paul D. Etienne said in a March 9 news release.

Other grants from the foundation will allow a dozen young people from the archdiocese and 10 archdiocesan seminarians to attend World Youth Day in Lisbon, Portugal, in August; send two students on an international service-learning project in the Dominican Republic; bring the live performance of “Tolton: From Slave to Priest” to 10 communities in the archdiocese; and support general operations of the Western Washington Catholic Charismatic Renewal.

For the seminarians, World Youth Day “is an important opportunity … to get an experience of the universal church,” said Father Justin Ryan, the archdiocese’s vocations director. “I hope they receive a profound encounter with Christ through praying with the youth and young adults while experiencing their fervent faith.” He also hopes the seminarians will have “the opportunity to be Christ to those they’ll see in Portugal, helping to facilitate those same encounters for others.”

The $104,000 one-year grant for the archdiocese’s immigrant and refugee ministry will support a full-time coordinator for the Welcome Circle program to sponsor refugees from Ukraine and other countries, said Chris Koehler, immigrant and refugee ministry director. The archdiocese had received funding for the program from the U.S. bishops’ conference, but that funding is winding down, he explained.

Waiting to welcome two Ukrainian refugees are Amy Nash, left, a Ukrainian Welcome Circle coordinator for the archdiocese’s Immigrant and Refugee Ministry office, and members of the Welcome Circles from St. John the Baptist Parish in Covington, St. James Cathedral and a north Seattle group. (Courtesy Amy Nash)

Funds from the St. Joseph Foundation will also allow the archdiocese to reinstate its chaplaincy program at the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma, which “stopped because of the pandemic,” Koehler said. And five stipends will be available to help lay leaders around the archdiocese start new migrant ministries or deepen the immigration outreach they are already doing, Koehler said.

Each of the grant recipients is a Catholic tax-exempt organization whose application for funding was approved by the St. Joseph Foundation board of directors. Recipients are required to provide progress reports to the foundation, showing how the grant money is supporting the church’s mission.

“It was inspiring to read about the great work and the committed people dedicated to their Catholic ministry,” said April Collier, vice president of the St. Joseph Foundation. “Their work is a testament that the Catholic faith is alive today across all our communities.”

The St. Joseph Foundation will award grants twice a year. The next deadline for new grant requests is May 26, 2023, for consideration in June. Learn more or apply for a grant.

Summary of the March 2023 St. Joseph Foundation grants

  • Catholic Healthcare Collaboration — $1 million over five years to support an innovative partnership of the Archdiocese of Seattle, Catholic Community Services and Catholic Housing Services of Western Washington, and local Catholic hospitals including PeaceHealth, Providence and Virginia Mason Franciscan Health. The collaboration will transform the way Catholic organizations work together and respond to the cry of the poor.
  • Education Across Borders — $5,600 funding for two students to participate in an international service-learning project in the Dominican Republic.
  • Immigrant & Refugee Ministry — $104,000 for one year to support one full-time coordinator and stipends for lay leaders to expand this archdiocesan ministry throughout the archdiocese.
  • Seattle Seafarers Center  — $156,000 over two years to support this ecumenical ministry that meets the spiritual and practical needs of ship workers arriving at our local ports. This grant supports funding for an executive director who will work to expand fundraising efforts for this program.
  • Seminarian Support — $21,000 to send 10 seminarians to World Youth Day in Lisbon, Portugal, in August 2023.
  • Saint Luke Productions — $50,000 to bring the live performance of “Tolton: From Slave to Priest” to 10 communities in the archdiocese.
  • Western Washington Catholic Charismatic Renewal — $3,000 for general operations to support the group’s mission of nurturing and inspiring Catholics to experience a personal relationship with Jesus Christ through baptism in the Holy Spirit.
  • Youth Ministry — $24,000 to send 12 young people to World Youth Day in Lisbon, Portugal, in August 2023.