Designated Offering
United Thank Offering (UTO)
Each month, we designate a particular social service organization for financial support through special collections on Sundays. This March, our special offering goes to UTO.
United Thank Offering is an Episcopal project in which we practice giving and thanksgiving at the same time.
Here’s how it works. Whenever you notice something you’re grateful for, place some dollars or coins in the little blue UTO box (or make a note to give later), and say a prayer of thanks. Your gratitude can come from any good thing: a sunny picnic, a new job, a birthday card, a good conversation.
When you turn your donation in to Good Sam, your thanksgivings unite with the prayers, quarters, dimes and dollars from across the Episcopal Church to support God’s mission around the world. UTO uses 100 percent of the proceeds to support innovative mission and ministry throughout the Episcopal Church and Provinces of the Anglican Communion.
How to help
Take home a UTO box; bring it back at the end of the month
Our ushers will have UTO boxes available in church on Sundays; please bring one home with you. At the end of the month, bring your box to the church office, and we’ll add your daily contributions to our collective contribution to UTO.
Make a designated offering
You can also gather your own daily Thank Offerings and make out a check to Church of the Good Samaritan, putting “designated offering” in the memo line. At the end of each month, we write a single check from Good Sam to the organization we’ve designated for our support.
Thank you for participating!
Your blessings become blessings for others
The habit of daily gratitude helps us to be thankful for all that has been given to us. Think of what you might be thankful for each day — sunshine — rain — a rainbow — a good meal — a warm bed — and drop a coin into the Little Blue Box. Later, our daily offerings are gathered, and UTO uses these gifts to fund grants worldwide, perhaps for a needed vehicle, a new building, or a new project.
Your sunny family picnic builds a senior community center in Louisiana.
Your new job supports career readiness training in Haiti.
The birthday card from a friend becomes an elevator for a wellness facility in a low-income area in California.
That good conversation funds an English immersion program in Tanzania.
Your blessing, your thankfulness becomes blessings for others.
One act of prayerful, tangible thanksgiving at a time has a wider impact than you might think possible.
Here’s a sample of what our United Thank Offerings have accomplished
UTO Grants are awarded throughout the Anglican communion, often a US diocese in cooperation with a companion diocese elsewhere. Here are several examples of projects:
- Diocese of Arizona with the Companion Diocese of Jerusalem – Renovating a School Facility
- Diocese of Colorado – St. Andrew’s Tiny House Village, St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Denver
- Diocese of New York with the Companion Diocese of Haiti – New York Haiti Project in Mantel, Haiti
- Diocese of Navajoland – Rides for Navajoland, Farmington, New Mexico
- Diocese of Olympia – Edible Hope Kitchen, St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Seattle
- Diocese of San Joaquin – Food Ministries of the Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin in Stockton, Fresno, Bakersfield
- Diocese of West Missouri – St. Luke’s Nursing Center Quality of Life Initiative in Carthage, Missouri
This is just a small selection of projects to which Episcopal churches in the U.S. and other countries have devoted resources and energy in the past. For more information, check out the Episcopal News Service and United Thank Offering online.
And be thankful every day for all that we have.