Jubilee Ministry is a program of the Episcopal Church which seeks out and honors ministries engaged in serving the poor and oppressed. For more than 11 years there has been a Jubilee Center in Prosser, a small town south of Yakima, which was started by members of St. Matthew’s/San Mateo Church. This center has been incorporated since 1986. It has grown from the basement of the church, moved into a warehouse and is now a non-profit, run by an ecumenical board of directors. The ministry expanded from clothes and food to care for senior citizens through at-home health care programs. They now have a partnership with the Prosser Police Department and the Benton Franklin Community Action Committee. For the past year, the center has served 2,456 total households, including 466 new households over the previous period.
In November of 2006, a second Jubilee Center at St. Luke’s in Coeur d’Alene was designated, doubling the number of Jubilee Ministry Centers in the diocese. The St. Luke’s Jubilee Center is in partnership with St. Vincent de Paul, and works extensively with their Transitional Housing Center, as well as with short term shelters and a feeding ministry. More than 1,250 volunteer hours were donated in 2006, as well as more than $3,000, which included $2,000 grant funds from Kootenai Electric Trust Fund, a regional electric cooperative.