RESPOND RESTORE RENEW Campaign – Our Annual Year-End Appeal

Respond. Restore. Renew Campaign

It’s no secret that the past nineteen months have been a challenge for us all. While we have experienced separation from each other and many of the things that bring us joy and happiness, we at MCC Toronto have also seen incredible resiliency as congregants and community members have responded to this crisis and supported each other in whole new ways. At MCC Toronto we believe that the worst is behind us – and that the best is yet to come.

We’ve responded to this crisis, we are restoring in-person activities to complement our new online programming and we are entering a time of renewal.

RESPOND.
RESTORE.
RENEW.

Over the past nineteen months, MCC Toronto has worked hard to respond to the needs of congregants and the communities we serve:

  • We enhanced our online services to bring joy and love into the lives of our viewers – week after week – with innovative music that helped us laugh and helped us cry, lessons for life that met spiritual and mental health needs, and online connections and community building that fought social isolation.
  • We adapted our LGBTQ+ Refugee Programs to support vulnerable refugees, many of whom were left in limbo due to closed borders. Our new Director of the program, Dave Kerr, is himself a refugee and is further expanding our services.
  • We brought Rev. June Joplin, an out and proud trans Pastor on to our staff team. We’ve increased our efforts to reach and support our congregants, extend desperately needed resources to community members experiencing financial hardship through our Benevolence Fund and and our Congregational Care Program is busier than ever before assisting through life’s transitions.

And our hard work is paying off! We’ve been seeing many new faces at our in-person Services from folks who have found us online over past year and a half. We’ve restored our Young Adult Group, Women’s Programming and will soon our attention to Seniors Programming. We’ve seen a huge uptake in the formation of new sponsorship teams working to bring LGBTQ+ refugees to Canada. The Triangle Program, our LGBTQ+ High School in partnership with the Toronto District School Board is back in our building and volunteers are once again preparing lunches for these underserviced youth. And we are developing a new framework for engaging the broader community in our Human Rights work.

At MCC Toronto, we don’t want to go back to the way things were, rather we envision a hopeful future where everyone matters and everyone belongs.

But as the realities of what time and circumstances have taken from us all, MCC Toronto now finds itself well short of the financial resources needed to sustain and build out our spiritual and Human Rights work. From lost offering revenues, to the pivoting of our Annual Pride Celebration to online, to our cancelled Fundraising Gala, and an inability to return to Roy Thomson Hall for our  Christmas Eve Service, MCC Toronto is projecting an unsustainable deficit for 2021 that threatens our current and future aspirations.

To address these significant budgetary shortfalls, MCC Toronto has launched the RESPOND RESTORE RENEW Campaign with a goal of raising $125,000 by December 31, 2021.

And you can help.

By making a special gift in support of our year-end RESPND | RESTORE | RENEW Campaign, you will help ensure that MCC Toronto has the resources to

  • RESPOND with love and support to the continuing needs of our congregation and the communities we serve
  • Help us RESTORE and maintain in-person services to complement our new online programming creating a hybrid that meets the needs of those ready to be together and those still more comfortable at home.
  • RENEW our commitment to introduce new programming streams that pledge to support MCC Toronto’s life-changing and life-saving work.

We know this time has been extremely challenging for you, your families, and our community as a whole. We also know many of you supported us through a difficult 2020, but 2021 has proven to be even more challenging year as this situation has continued longer than any of us expected. As we work to respond, restore and renew, MCC Toronto needs your help like never before.

You may make your gift in support of our RESPOND RESTORE RENEW Campaign from our website or by calling 416-406-6228 ext. 126, or by contacting giving@mcctoronto.com for assistance.

MAKE A GIFT TODAY

On behalf of all of us at MCC Toronto, thank you for your love, support, and continued faith in us.

December 17, 2021

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