Thank you all!

The Service & Outreach Group is always humbled by the outpouring of support this parish shows for Have a Heart each year. Please know how much we appreciate—and depend on—your good will, generosity, and, not least, your labor. Thank you to all who once again helped make Have a Heart wonderful.

Amanda the Great for cheerful and skillful event planning and management❤️Alice Foreman who made the evening especially gorgeous❤️Cooks and provisioners and kitchen helpers who offered guests a splendid table❤️The many people who supplied wine for the Cork Pull❤️Servers who kept all sorts of drinks flowing❤️Petero Buyondo and his camera ❤️The young folks who kept up with everyone’s coats and helped serve❤️Cashiers who wrangled payments❤️Raffle and silent auction donors who offered fun occasions for parishioners to meet and mingle❤️The cleanup crew who restored post-event order❤️Epiphany staff members who take on extra work behind the scenes❤️Special shout outs to Diane Carlisle for expediting PR❤️Geith for hanging lights in the Great Hall❤️Bryan Fiehler for video post-production❤️Pam Demian for the number crunching❤️Dani Lugotoff for her culinary flair and kitchen consulting❤️and finally, Doyt and Kate, who keep drawing people to Epiphany

Women’s Retreat Group rises to Alice’s challenge

They did it! Thanks to the generous response by Epiphany’s Women’s Retreat Group to Alice Foreman’s generous offer, at least two more tiny homes can go into production soon.

At WRG’s January meeting, guest speaker Barb Oliver, Operations Manager of Sound Foundations NW, described how tiny homes built by Sound Foundations and tiny home villages operated by the Low Income Housing Institute (LIHI) offer the best first step in effectively addressing homelessness in Seattle, especially for women without safe housing. Alice, already a supporter of tiny homes, announced that she would match any Have a Heart donations to Sound Foundations by WRG members, up to $4500, the materials cost of one tiny home.

Epiphany began its financial support for LIHI and subsequently Sound Foundations in 2018. Through 2024, your donations at Have a Heart have bought building materials for about seventeen tiny homes! You can join the Epiphany crew on the fourth Saturday of each month to help build “our” two (maybe more!) new tiny homes at the Sound Foundations’ Hope Factory.

A crowd came to take a look at the new Donna Jean's Place shelter for women on the grounds of Saint Mark's Cathedral, including Dean Steven Thomason.

Donna Jean’s Place set to open soon

Maybe it was appropriate that Operation Nightwatch scheduled an open house and tour of its new emergency overnight shelter for women on Sunday, February 2. Many of us in the Service & Outreach Group would have attended this exciting milestone, but we were pretty busy that day raising money for Nightwatch and other nonprofit friends!

Donna Jean’s Place, named for the widow of Operation Nightwatch founder Pastor Bud Palmberg, is a collaboration of Nightwatch and Saint Mark’s Cathedral. The shelter in the old Saint Nicholas School building on the Cathedral campus provides twenty women a safe place to sleep every night, with access to showers, laundry facilities, and personal storage lockers. With the added help of case management and basic medical care, plus the support of the loving community of Saint Mark’s and other faith groups, the shelter offers women a safe space to recover from the trauma of street life and the resources needed to find stability and housing. It's estimated that approximately a hundred women each year will make that transition through Donna Jean's Place.

Because parishioners were so generous at Have a Heart last year, Epiphany was able to give Nightwatch $20,000 this past fall (in addition to an earlier $10,000 gift) toward the $150,000 needed to renovate the shelter space, which was formerly a Gage Academy studio. “Epiphany Parish and the St. Mark’s community have been incredibly generous,” said Nightwatch Executive Director Deacon Frank DiGirolamo. “Other churches want to help. It is a response of the broader faith community. A great thing for the city to see.”

"The Donna Jean’s Place effort began when we met “Aimee” on a rainy night last winter. She had walked across town to Nightwatch—shivering, alone, and desperate for shelter. We could find nothing. She slept around the corner on a sidewalk."

Read more of Deacon Frank’s remarks about Donna Jean's Place.

The YWCA food pantry can use your extra groceries

Is your kitchen overstocked with nonperishables that you know you won’t use before their best-by dates? Don’t let them languish on your kitchen shelves! Please bring them to the YWCA Central Food Bank’s food pantry. The pantry is located outside the fenced food bank site, just behind the YWCA Phillis Wheatley Branch on East Cherry Street in Madrona. Canned tuna fish, chicken, and other proteins are especially welcome. In 2024, 10% of the food distributed by the food bank—over 33,000 pounds—was through its little free pantry, which is filled (and then emptied!) four or five times a week. It's a resource used by the homeless as well as neighborhood residents. Please, no expired items! 

Operation Nightwatch Community Dinner, Capitol Hill

Every Tuesday, 5:00–6:30 PM 

Help Nightwatch staff and volunteers set up, serve food, and clean up. 



Ronald McDonald House, Sand Point

Dates vary, 12:45–4:00 PM 

Prepare dinners for families with a sick child at Seattle Children's Hospital.



YWCA Central Area Food Bank, Madrona 

Tuesdays and Wednesdays

Prep and pack food bags Tuesday or Wednesday morning or deliver groceries to clients’ homes Wednesday afternoon. 

Tiny Home Build, Sound Foundations, South Seattle  

Fourth Saturdays, 9:00 AM–3:00 PM 

Swing a hammer with Epiphany friends building tiny homes, proven stopovers for people moving from the streets to permanent housing. 

Operation Nightwatch Nightly Meal, Nightwatch Dispatch Center 

Third Saturday of odd-numbered months, 7:00–10:00 PM

Epiphany’s night to cook and serve food to 150 or so clients before they head for various city shelters for the night. 

Teen Feed, UCC Church, University District 

Fourth Thursday, January–October, 6:30–8:30 PM

Epiphany’s crew makes enchiladas for young people living on the streets.

YWCA Angeline's Day Center for Women, Belltown

Third Thursday of the month, 11:30 AM–2:00 PM

Serve lunch to women using Angeline's drop-in services for the homeless.

To get involved, please contact Amanda at amanda@epiphanyseattle.org

Wherever you are on your spiritual journey you have a place at Epiphany