Trinity Episcopal Church in Canton, CT is a 120-member parish committed to outreach. On October 1st, it became one of six congregations in the town involved in an ecumenical effort to sponsor a displaced family from Hurricane Katrina.  Months before the Gulf Coast disaster struck, clergy from the six churches – one Baptist, one Methodist, two Congregational, one Roman Catholic, and Trinity Episcopal – met together to discuss the idea of co-sponsoring a refugee family with EMM affiliate Interfaith Refugee Ministry (IRM) in New Haven. Each congregation embraced the idea, and the churches were about to begin the process in September when Hurricane Katrina hit.
 
With so many uprooted from the Gulf Coast, the group decided to contact IRM about sponsoring evacuees. They were soon connected to a family with two young children and began preparations to welcome them to Canton.  The congregations organized themselves into various committees in preparation for the family’s arrival and found a home for them in the parsonage of the Baptist church. It soon became a community effort as stores donated six new beds, a stove, refrigerator, microwave, a screen door, and wood to repair the deck on the back of the house.