By Lisa H. Towle, NECW President

In January of 2018, 156 years after the then-Hawaiian monarchs personally petitioned Queen Victoria to establish the Anglican Church in their kingdom, the National Board of Episcopal Church Women held a meeting in the Diocese of Hawai’i. During our time in Maui, the Good Shepherd (Episcopal) Women in Ministry along with the Rev. Amy Crowe, Vicar at Holy Innocents Episcopal Church in Lahaina, provided mental, physical, and spiritual nourishment. […]

To seek to transform unjust structures of society . . . .

—Lois Frankforter
President of Girls Friendly Society USA

To attain the transformation sought by the Fourth Mark of Mission our ministry must focus on all levels of society – from national governments, to local communities, and even to the individuals we meet as we walk down the street. The Episcopal Church seeks to transform global social structures by participating in United Nations (UN) events like the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW). In March, I had the privilege to serve as a member of the Presiding Bishop’s CSW Delegation, and to advocate for specific policy changes to achieve gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls. […]

Founder, Church Periodical Club (1858 – 1892)

Near the end of the 19th century Mary Ann Drake Fargo, a member of the Church of the Holy Communion in New York City, founded the Church Periodical Club (CPC). After returning from a trip to the far west she shared— first with her rector and then her bishop—her vision of sending to the missionaries in remote locations in our country used church periodicals, that otherwise were unavailable to them. Upon receiving the blessing of her rector, she called a meeting at her home to interest the women of her parish in her plans for collecting and sending reading materials to aid ministers and lay workers out west. The women at that gathering became the eight charter members of the Periodical Club, January 10th, 1888. After the first Club was established in New York Diocese, branches were created soon in other dioceses. […]

A Story of ECW Resurrection at Trinity Church, Watertown, New York

— Submitted by Jennifer Kenna
Province II Representative
NECW Board

In the Fall of 2008, when I was Province II ECW President, the rector at Trinity Church, Watertown, NY, in my home Diocese of Central New York, invited me to speak to a group of retired women at his parish, interested in re-organizing the parish ECW. I wholeheartedly accepted the invitation and spent an evening sharing ECW materials with the women and left encouraged by their enthusiasm. Since that evening nine years ago, this group of women, who call themselves YARN group, has grown and flourished. […]