Sunday, Sept 22, St. Mark’s is thrilled to welcome The Rev. Rebecca Edwards, Co-Founder and Co-Director of Braid Mission. Braid Mission recently celebrated 10 years in ministry, and we are excited to hear from Rebecca about the impact of their ministry in our diocese. Rebecca will preach at the 8 am and 10 am services and then lead a forum following our service.
About Braid Mission: Inspired by the resilience of youth who overcame the challenges of foster care, and the caring adults who helped them along the way, Rebecca Edwards and Christopher Chase were convicted by their faith to find ways to surround more youth with supportive community. As a result of their learning about the trauma inherent in foster care, in 2014 they founded Braid Mission, with its unique team-based mentoring model.
At its core, Braid Mission is a community of more than 150 active volunteers. These volunteers represent a wide variety of backgrounds, ages, and interests. Every week they gather in teams to surround foster youth with hope, presence, recreation, and community. More than half of Braid’s youth have been matched for two years or longer.
Ways to Support Braid: Braid is supported by a founding endowing gift which supports the administrative costs of the ministry. It depends up grants and private donors to support and grow its program offerings. You can make a donation online.
Come Celebrate 10 Years with Braid: While some of you will choose to attend the Evensong at St. Mark’s on Sunday, September 29, a week after Rebecca’s visit, others of you may be interested in attending Braid’s Birthday Party. St. Mark’s will be supporting this momentous occasion through a donation from the Clergy Discretionary Account. We hope you’ll consider attending and/or supporting Braid.
About the Guest: Rebecca Edwards has been a priest in the Episcopal Church for twelve years, following many years of youth ministry and serving as a volunteer and board member for Big Brother Big Sister in her hometown of Chattanooga. These experiences formed some of the beliefs that guided Braid’s model: that all children deserve to be surrounded by adults who encourage and empower them, and that volunteers need supportive community to thrive.
