By Sherri Dietrich, UTO Board President

Forty years ago the women of UTO wisely established the Memorial Trust Fund to allow the UTO Board to grant every penny of the Ingathering to support innovative mission and ministry and no longer offset the cost of the Board or the creation of educational materials. The trust fund has received numerous donations since its inception and now covers almost all the administrative and educational costs of UTO. One of the UTO Board’s goals is to grow the trust so that it covers ALL of our administrative costs. 

In honor of the 40th anniversary of the trust fund, the UTO Board is encouraging everyone to consider leaving a legacy gift to the fund through their will. We are dedicating a new section of the Memorial Trust  Fund book to legacy gifts. The other effort is to raise awareness of the importance of the trust by offering a special gift for the first 100 donations over $100, in honor of the centenary of Julia Chester Emery’s death. Thanks to our partners at the Jerusalem Princess Basma Center, a past UTO grant recipient, we have beautiful wooden boxes with a UTO tile inlaid in the top, made by adults with disabilities through a job training program. We will give the boxes as gifts to the givers of the first 75 donations over $100 given to the Memorial Trust Fund during the 40th anniversary year. We also have gifts for the next 25, so that the first 100 donors will all receive a gift. Our goal is to raise $10,000 for the trust in 2022 to continue to expand the work of UTO.

Please consider all the materials you receive for the cost of shipping alone and make a thank offering to the Memorial Trust Fund this year. The cost to print materials is significant:

• Blue Boxes cost 45 cents each
• Prayer books cost $1.81 each
• Prayer cards cost 21 cents each, and
• Brochures costs $1.37 each

The Memorial Trust Fund also covers the costs to create these items, have them proofread, translated, and designed. Additionally, the trust supports the creation of online materials, videos, social media, applications for smart phones, and more. Finally, the trust allows for the staff and Board to promote the United Thank Offering, administer the annual granting process, and respond to the needs of our members and grassroots network.

A gift to the Memorial Trust Fund in thanksgiving for former or current UTO coordinators or board members is a beautifully appropriate and enduring way to honor and thank them for their service and provide long-term support for the work they valued. The names of all those who are honored or remembered with a gift to the fund are permanently recorded in our Trust Fund book and kept in the United Thank Offering Office, displayed at each General Convention/Triennial Meeting of the Episcopal Church Women, and viewable online here. Every gift is acknowledged with a card to you and to anyone else you specify. We also acknowledge and thank each donor in our annual report.

You may also wish to remember the Memorial Trust Fund in your will, which will support the ongoing work of promoting gratitude and funding the church’s mission, and will also endure as a thank offering for all the blessings you experienced throughout your lifetime. Learn more about this option. 

United Thank Offering members contribute to the Memorial Trust Fund every triennium in honor of loved ones, in gratitude for the gift of UTO in their lives, and in thanks for UTO’s ministry of gratitude that coordinators carry out around the world. Your gift to the Memorial Trust Fund this year will allow us to continue and expand that work around the world.