Grants from Episcopal Community Ministries are supporting an “organically grown connection” between the Queen City Street Choir at Christ Church Cathedral and Food for the Soul at the Community of the Transfiguration.
Jason Fishburn founded the Queen City Street Choir in October 2022, shortly after he moved to Cincinnati from Indianapolis. The choir, made up mostly of people who are unhoused or face housing insecurity, rehearses on Sunday afternoon in the cathedral’s Centennial Chapel. The group started small — Fishburn laughs as he acknowledges that no one showed up for the first few rehearsals — but has grown to include about sixty singers.
“Housing insecurity takes many forms,” Fishburn says, “with some folks couch-surfing and others living in their cars or with family members, as well as some in transitional housing or on the streets.”
Late last year, realizing that many choir members were also struggling with food insecurity, Rich McDonough, co-chair of the cathedral’s 5000 Club food ministry, and Ariel Miller, longtime advocate and member of Ascension & Holy Trinity, Wyoming, worked with Mary Knight, director of Food for the Soul at the Community of the Transfiguration, to begin providing lunch for choir members before each rehearsal.
“The meal adds an opportunity to come together and sit down for conversation and time to reconnect with friends,” Fishburn says. “It adds more community to the community that has already developed.”
“Our work with the Queen City Choir brings to light how Episcopal communities can partner together. There really is strength in numbers,” Knight says. Begun early in the pandemic as a way to use food from the Community’s retreat center pantry and to retain kitchen staff, Food for the Soul has so far rescued more than 400,000 pounds of food that would otherwise have been discarded and served 480,000 meals.
“We treat food with the same dignity we treat those who come to us for food,” Knight said.
Queen City singers are also supported by a licensed social worker from the Free Store Food Bank and many cathedral staff and volunteers who attend lunch and rehearsal and even rearrange chairs in the chapel before each rehearsal.
“I am so grateful for the warm welcome that the cathedral has given to me and the people who come in to sing,” Fishburn said.
Episcopal Community Ministries is accepting its first round of 2024 grant applications through January 31. Learn more.
