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Just as our Lord Jesus Christ reached out to the most disadvantaged and marginalized people in society, so we are compelled to work to bring relief to those who are suffering or ignored in our surrounding community.
St. Martin
’s has an active Outreach Committee who helps us do this as effectively possible.
Locally,
St Martin
’s has developed a close relationship with various social justice agencies within our parish boundaries: the Redwood Shelter, the Etobicoke Girls’ Residence, the Stop Foodbank and Romero House. We also support the St Bartholomew’s Food Bank in
Regent
Park
, provide supplies to the
Mission
to Seafarers ministry at the
Toronto
Harbour
, and donate used clothing to the Street Patrol ministry at St. Olave’s Parish in
Bloor
West
Village
.
Our Outreach Committee also facilitates our parish’s response to FaithWorks, which is the outreach arm of the whole Diocese. FaithWorks supports fifteen agencies throughout the Greater Toronto Area and into the
York
, Peel, Simcoe,
Peterborough
, Haliburton and
Durham
regions by providing assistance to refugees, prisoners, the homeless, the underemployed, and families fleeing abuse.
Throughout the year, our congregations contributes to collections of food, clothing, or toiletries. There are also opportunities to volunteer your time and skills to a particular project: recently we helped to clean and paint the kitchen area of the Etobicoke Girls’ Residence.
Please remember FaithWorks in your monthly donations to
St Martin
’s and specify FaithWorks on your envelopes – a full 15% of all money given to FaithWorks is retained by the Outreach Committee for local work in our own community.
We encourage you to get involved in the Outreach Committee and to contribute to our work. For as the Apostle James says: “If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,’ and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.” (James 2:15-17)
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