The Rev. Blair Pogue, Canon for Innovation

Casa Maria: How to Pivot and Innovate Faithfully

Faithful Innovation

Casa Maria, a feeding ministry located at St. Nicholas/San Nicholas Episcopal Church in Richfield, Minnesota is once again modeling how a faith community and ministry can pivot during times of challenge and change. According to Food Shelf Manager Cyara Carabin Carrereto, Casa Maria started during Covid when members of San Nicholas, in conjunction with their priest Julie Luna, wondered how God might be calling them to love their neighbors. When Julie and Latino/a young adults from the church knocked on doors in the church’s neighborhood, they received repeated requests for food. What started as the delivery of needed food items became a food shelf and clothing closet feeding an average of 95 households each week.

When ICE began flooding the Twin Cities, Casa Maria’s largely Spanish-speaking population stopped coming in person, but still needed food. The core team and volunteers started delivering boxes of food to households, and deliveries rose from 52 households on January 18 to 300 households on January 23 (500 requested food). On January 31, 403 requests for food were received before the Google form was closed (350 people received food Saturday, and more will be served this week).

Praying and thinking on its feet, the staff of Casa Maria decided to have three different ways for volunteers to deliver food:

  • Pick up and deliver boxes of food to five different households.
  • Pick up gift cards, shop for three families (shopping list provided), and deliver the food. 
  • Get the shopping list, pay for the food, and deliver it. 

Drivers’ routes were developed using Chat GPT, and Casa Maria is in conversation with a Mexican grocery store in Richfield to see if they can purchase food and have their volunteers deliver it to those who need it.

This past Saturday approximately 30 volunteers helped with logistics and 150 drivers delivered food. St/San Nicholas’ Deacon and Ministry Developer Rena Romero put a notice in the Richfield Mutual Aid Group asking neighbors to buy groceries, and they did! Church neighbors not only purchased food, they came to the church to help, some crying and in need of pastoral care. Witnessing all of this, an immigrant volunteer also started crying and said, “people are out there who will die for me.” Notes of encouragement written by parishioners from St. John’s, Linden Hills have been placed in food boxes, and Saturday a prayer and a passage from scripture will be included. The Casa Maria staff will also be changing the online food request form to include a place where people can add prayers.

It can be hard for faith communities to pivot. But all they need is a willingness to listen to the Holy Spirit speaking through scripture, neighbors, and circumstances. As we say often in the Mustard Seed* learning community, “what’s your next faithful step?” We’re not saying what are your next ten faithful steps, but the ONE you are called to take next. Casa Maria is not trying to do everything on their own but, from the beginning, partnering with other Episcopal leaders and faith communities. And increasingly they are partnering with neighbors, becoming even more embedded in the neighborhood where God planted them. They continue to ask, “How are we being called to love our neighbors in this time, and in this place?” And this changes over time.

What have you heard the Holy Spirit say to you and your faith community when you listened to your neighbors? What is your next faithful step?

If you’d like to make a donation to support Casa Maria please click here.

*Mustard seed is a group of Episcopal Christian lay and ordained leaders learning how to join up with neighbors who don’t go to church where they live, work and play. They are also learning how to share their faith with spiritually curious neighbors.