The café finds new ways to serve our ‘village

Café @ St. Stephen’s adapts to continue serving our ‘village’

In good weather, outdoor seating; in all weather, curbside service and new take-home suppers

The Café @ St. Stephen’s has continued to be a central part of our “village green,” welcoming all to enjoy a cup of coffee or tea, a made-toorder espresso drink, a delicious breakfast or lunch, and now, take-out suppers.

Since it became permissible—and safe—to do so, our café has been offering outdoor tables and seating. This option has been a huge hit, allowing people to see friends they’d been missing during the earlier days of the pandemic. As the weather becomes less hospitable to outdoor coffee and dining, we’ll continue to offer online and phone ordering for curbside pick-up.

The online ordering site has been refreshed and reorganized for easier navigation. Have a look at cafeatststephens.org. You can place your order there and pay online, or call in your order to 804.288.3318. After a long, hot summer, during which the café was open from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. for drinks, breakfast, lunch, and snacks, the hours expanded to include a twohour after-school period when students, parents, and teachers could order coffee, tea, espresso drinks, and grab-and-go snacks from 2 to 4 p.m.

In November, the offerings expanded further.

The café began opening on Saturdays so that vendors, volunteers, staff, and patrons of our farmers market could order coffee and other drinks, as well as grab-and-go breakfast foods. Saturday hours are 7 a.m.-noon.

Also in November, the café began selling take-out suppers for two, offering different entrees, soups and salads each week. Orders are placed online or by phone (no later than 1 p.m.) for pick-up between 2 and 5 p.m. With shorter days, inclement weather, and unpredictable schedules affecting us all, our hope is that this will be a welcome convenience.

Stan Barnett, director of kitchen ministries, and Tabitha Venditti, café manager, have been making healthy, warming soups— but those are not only for café customers, but also for those who use our food pantry to help feed their families. Remember that when you and your friends and colleagues support our café, you’re supporting our food ministry.

In October, the café welcomed Phin Generelly to the staff. Phin is a true café artist who will be familiar to Rostov’s customers, where he was not only a barista but the teacher of choice for new employees there. After a time outside café work, he’s returned, and we’re thrilled he’s joined our team as head barista. ✤

Food pantry ministry

addresses urgent needs

On November 10, the Washington Post published an interview with Claire Babineaux-Fontenot, chief executive of Feeding America, the largest domestic hunger organization in the country, with a network of 200 food banks, 60,000 food pantries and meals programs, and 2 million volunteers. Reporter KK Ottesen asked her about the effect of the pandemic on food insecurity in the United States.

“What we’ve seen since covid-19 has been a precipitous increase in need,” Babineaux-Fontenot said. “Very early on, we started noticing that there were new faces showing up in need of food. Forty percent of the people turning to us for help had never before turned to the charitable food system for help. We’re estimating that, over the course of the pandemic, those numbers are going to go from roughly 35 million to somewhere closer to 50 million.”

The trends at St. Stephen’s pantry are similar: we see a continual increase in the need for food support, including for those who tell us they’ve never used a pantry in

the past to feed their families. Your continuing donations of canned and boxed food, along with fresh food donated by market vendors and freshly-prepared soups from our café kitchen help us meet the needs, though each week we need to supplement these supplies with food from FeedMore (the central Virginia food bank), and purchased groceries from Lidl.

And by the end of the day each Monday, the shelves in

our pantry are once again empty. Your consistency and your concern for others continue to be crucial to our ability to restock in time for the next weekly distribution.

Fruit ministry volunteers continue their important work of bagging and delivering fresh fruit to residents of East End federal housing communities. While our volunteers are not able to visit with people in the same way they did before the pandemic, they know that these deliveries are, in many cases, the only fresh fruit the recipients have all week. Your donations of apples, oranges and bananas make this ministry possible.

All of the food you bring to church for this ministry can be placed in the grocery cart positioned outside the parish house (off the Somerset Avenue parking lot). If you have questions, please be in touch with Anna Jones, ajones@ststephensRVA.org. ✤

Farmers market continues through the winter

We’ll gather outdoors this year to lower health risks

The Farmers Market @ St. Stephen’s is a year-round market. While the line-up of vendors changes a bit during the winter months, the market does go on, providing a way for farmers and other producers to continue to sell their products, and for customers to continue to enjoy fresh, local produce, eggs, meat, and more.

The market typically moves into the Fellowship Hall for the winter, but this year’s market will continue to be outside to keep customers and vendors as safe as possible. You’ll have the choice of shopping as you usually do, or pre-ordering, picking up orders, and quickly getting back in your car where it’s warm. Either way, we invite you to bundle up and try something new with us this winter. You can enjoy a hot beverage from our café while you shop!

Please note that while the market does operate rain or shine, there may be days when snow or ice make conditions unsafe. If this is the case, the market will be cancelled for the day. If it’s snowing or icy on market day, visit our Web site (ststephensRVA.org/market) or the market’s Facebook page for updates.

An up-to-date list of vendors and what they’ll offer, as well as information and links for contacting them directly, will be available on the same page of our Web site Wednesday afternoon of each week.

We’ll place special emphasis on craft vendors in December, so that you can shop for local, handmade gifts for family and friends.

Please remember to observe all health and safety practices in effect at the market, such as wearing a mask at all times, and entering and exiting only where indicated by signage. ✤

Signs of life

During tough times, the people of St. Stephen’s have looked toward the light

It’s been a rough year.

And yet, through a particularly rancorous political season, a worldwide pandemic, and resulting economic suffering, St. Stephen’s Church continues to exhibit vitality. While we forego many of the practices, traditions and routines that we cherish in order By Sarah Bartenstein to keep our community safe, we’ve also found new ways to remain connected to one another and reach out to our community. And remarkably, we have continued to receive many new parishioners who have transferred into this church— during a pandemic. For some, their only experience of St. Stephen’s worship has been the virtual kind, video and livestreaming. And yet there’s something happening here that they want to be part of.

In fact, a recent parish register report shows that from January through mid-November, 44 children and adults were baptized here. There have been eight marriages. Thirty-seven people have transferred their memberships to St. Stephen’s. Four members have transferred to parishes outside our diocese, while three households have found new church homes in the area.

While we know that some in our parish have been affected by job loss and other economic fallout from the pandemic, and thus not able to provide financial support as they would wish, others have stepped forward to increase their giving. Those in a position to give as they have in the past, or even to give more, sense that their support is especially needed. We step in to help where we can.

During this period when so many children and youth are missing activities they’d been looking forward to, in school, sports, church, and other areas—while being “Zoomed out” by virtual gatherings—35 young people have committed to preparing for Confirmation in the Episcopal Church. Teenagers who do not even know when it will be possible for them to participate in the rite of Confirmation with their families, their congregation, and their bishop have nonetheless signed on to prepare for it together, whenever it may happen. (See related article on page 9.) Volunteers continue to show up on Mondays to prepare bags of groceries for those in need in our community—a number that continues to grow—and offer a warm welcome along with the food. Farmers market volunteers work with staff to welcome people to our Saturday market to buy fresh, local food, a safe alternative to shopping in a crowded grocery store, while supporting local farms and small businesses during a tough economic time. Those vendors give back, as well, by donating food to our food pantry.

The Rev. Gary Jones leads an outdoor worship service for All Saints’ Day.

Emmaus groups—groups of 10 or so parishioners who gather weekly to reflect on the Gospel and on the health of their souls— have found ways to meet, whether in an online meeting platform, or seated outdoors, safely distanced from one another. Others have taken part in a Tuesday Bible study offered by the Rev. Cate Anthony and other St. Stephen’s clergy on Zoom.

The Daughters of the King, an order for women who commit to pray for all who have requested it, pray where they are. Parishioners subscribe to our prayer list so they can continue to pray for their fellow parishioners and others who have asked to be included in these intentions.

Others pray in Gary Jones’ Wednesday evening “Contemplative Chapel,” joining anywhere from 50 to as many as 100 others for

lectio divina and centering prayer on Zoom. Our café has provided curbside service as well as outdoor seating that allowed people to reconnect with one another after a season of lockdown. Now they’re offering take-out suppers (page 15).

Worship videos, produced every week from mid-March until early November, not only provided a way to worship each Sunday,