The UTO Board and staff are thrilled to announce Raising Grateful Voices, a new opportunity to gather together to learn, share, and experience UTO Grant sites. This triennium, UTO will be offering annual regional gatherings in conjunction with other complementary gatherings in The Episcopal Church in different regions of the country. This year, we are partnering with Missional Voices and Christ Church Cathedral in New Orleans. Missional Voices was started by a group of seminarians a few years ago to provide a forum for important conversations about mission and the growing edge of the Church, making it a natural partner for UTO. (We are pleased to share that a representative of Jericho Road, a UTO Grant site, will be one of the featured speakers at Missional Voices.)

We’ve designed our time together to try to keep costs at a minimum. We’ll begin after lunch on Wednesday, June 12, and end at lunchtime on Thursday, June 13. We’re pleased to announce that our keynote speaker will be Connie Uddo, executive director of NOLA Tree Project and St. Paul’s Homecoming Center. Come hear Connie share about her experience and dedication to New Orleans and the ongoing work of recovery after Hurricane Katrina. For the UTO closing keynote presentation, Kids Orchestra from Baton Rouge, Louisiana will present some of the practices the group started thanks to a UTO Grant. We’re offering a ton of great workshops, from Introduction to Asset-Based Community Development, Gratitude and Faith Formation, and Grant Writing Best Practices to all of our usual UTO offerings on best financial practices and ways to promote UTO. Oh, and we’ll be sure to have traditional New Orleans snacks at break times, in addition to giving you time to enjoy the city while you’re with us. We are so very excited about this event and all of the great workshop presenters and speakers. To learn more and see the full schedule, head on over to www.episcopalchurch.org/uto. (We’ll have the full workshop booklet posted soon!) Registration for the full event is just $40, and you can register here: https://dfms.formstack.com/forms/uto_day_at_missional_voices_registration_2019?fbclid=IwAR0uZpM6VnVNdZjF3QpKpAoucRwmsLQ5zNq39rjnfq6s0W3TWG2846n8b9A. Please email Heather if you need more information about this event.

Also, we’ll be offering a program for children during Missional Voices called Dive Deep Into Gratitude with UTO! Our hope is to offer this curriculum free of charge to be used as a VBS or Advent activity program beginning late fall 2019. A sneak peak of the prototype of the UTO Blue Box submarine is in the photo above. If you’re coming to Missional Voices, sign up for the children’s program on the registration form.

You do not need to attend the Missional Voices gathering (MV19) in order to attend Raising Grateful Voices; however, if you would like to attend MV19, the organizers are offering a special rate of $74 for UTO – simply use the code MVUTO at checkout. (You can register for MV19 here and find all of the hotel information and special rates on the Missional Voices page: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/2019-missional-voices-national-gathering-tickets-47523111907.)