St. Stephen's Service Projects

St. Stephen's has a number of on-going projects that provide food to hungry people, advocate for affordable housing, and work for justice in our Columbia Heights neighborhood and in our city.

Loaves and Fishes, our hot meal program, has been providing hot meals since the late 1960s at Noon on Saturdays, Sundays, Monday federal holidays, Christmas, and Thanksgiving -- days when other soup kitchens are closed. Read more about Loaves and Fishes on its webpage.

In the 1960s St. Stephen's gave away almost all of its land and helped purchase adjoining properties for the construction of Urban Village, the affordable housing apartment complex that surrounds the church on three sides. Today, the Urban Village Corporation, an outgrowth of that project, works with tenants in Columba Heights who are pursing affordable housing conversions of their buildings. The Urban Village Corporation is made up of St. Stephen's parishioners and Urban Village residents. During our Fall 2009 Help the Homeless Mini-Walk, parishioners detailed some of these efforts; you can see some of this in a video posted on YouTube.

St. Stephen's is a member of the Washington Interfaith Network (WIN); parishioners are active in many of WIN's efforts to improve city services in our neighborhood and across the city. Read more about WIN on its webpage.

The Samaritan Ministry of Greater Washington was founded at St. Stephen's Church in the 1980s and has since gone on to become a city-wide social service agency. St. Stephen's remains an active member of the Samaritan Ministry of Greater Washington.

St. Stephen's Housing. With another organization, St. Stephen's Church owns two homes on Newton Street that are used as transitional housing for families moving out of homelessness.