ECF Announces 2020 Fellows
The Episcopal Church Foundation is excited to announce the two individuals named to the 2020 Fellows class – Hannah Mudge Armidon and Sarah Monroe. These innovative and emerging leaders are pairing their expertise with their passion to make a positive impact on the Episcopal Church and beyond.
As ECF’s longest running program, the Fellowship Partners Program has been supporting entrepreneurial leaders since 1964. Initially started to support academics with intentions to teach in seminaries, the Fellowship has expanded over the years to lift up emerging academic and ministry leaders who seek to impact the wider Church. ECF is proud to partner with our 2020 Fellows and is excited to journey with them as they shape the Episcopal Church of the future. To view a list of all ECF Fellows, click here.
ECF President Donald Romanik, extending his congratulations to the 2020 Fellows, said, “For more than half a century, ECF's Fellowship Partners Program has supported emerging and aspiring leaders across the Church. During these difficult times, our 2020 Fellows continue the tradition of pursuing important, innovative and potentially transformational academic and ministry initiatives. We look forward to working with these exceptional individuals.”
The two recipients’ scholarship and ministry projects show a Church that is engaged in a changing world. The 2020 Fellows are building up spiritual leadership in poor communities and addressing the theology of uncleanness. Read more about the 2020 Fellows and their projects below.
The Rev. Hannah Mudge Armidon was ordained a priest in the Episcopal Diocese of Albany in 2010. Prior to this, she was a veterinary technician and a professional violinist. For the subsequent seven years, she planted and oversaw a church planting ministry in the inner city of Troy, NY. In 2017, she became ill and left to pursue a PhD in Old Testament studies at Wycliffe College, Toronto, focusing on the theology of uncleanness. She lives in Illinois with her husband Robert and a wide variety of potted plants as she continues her studies.
Sarah Monroe is the priest in charge and cofounder of Chaplains on the Harbor, a parish of over 500 homeless, incarcerated, and poor people in rural Grays Harbor County, Washington State. Sarah grew up on the Harbor, attended Episcopal Divinity School, and planted Chaplains on the Harbor in 2013. Now employing eleven staff members, most of whom are formerly homeless, Chaplains on the Harbor operates a 23 acre farm, hosts six feeding programs a week, runs a community center and low-barrier shelter, does human rights organizing, and offers pastoral care to people on the streets and behind bars. Harbor Roots Farm, their supportive employment program, was started in 2016 to provide living-wage jobs for local people getting off the street, out of jail, graduating from drug treatment, and otherwise stabilizing in their lives. Sarah, and the entire staff, have been deeply involved in the Poor People's Campaign: A National Call for a Moral Revival since its inception. She is passionate about bringing poor communities together across lines of difference and division. Drawing on the group's experience, as an ECF Fellow, she will develop a chaplaincy training program, focusing on developing leadership in poor communities and movement building. The training program will both continue to develop local leadership and offer a model to the larger church about how to be church among the 140 million poor people in the United States at this moment. Sarah has written about her experience working in a majority white, very poor community, and on anti-racism and movement building in that context, and is currently working on her first book about this groundbreaking ministry.
The application process for the 2021 ECF Fellowship will open in November, 2020. Complete information about the ECF Fellowship Partners Program can be found on ECF's website.