This year, Georgetown Ministry Center (GMC) marks 30 years of service to people experiencing homelessness in our community. In anticipation of its upcoming annual benefit, the Spirit of Georgetown, GMC invites you to a special Q&A conversation with author, journalist and host of the 2017 Spirit of Georgetown, Sally Quinn, and Leon Weiseltier, of Brookings Institute, writer, critic, philosopher and magazine editor.  They sit down to discuss her new book, Finding Magic: A Spiritual Memoir, touching upon the topics of spirituality and the ways our various faiths unite us all and shape our views on how to care for people who are less fortunate, as is GMC’s mission.

The event is free, but space is limited. Please RSVP on our Eventbrite page.

Tickets to the 2017 Spirit of Georgetown will be available for sale at the event. Copies of Sally’s book will be for sale and she will be available for book-signing after the Q&A.

About Leon Wieseltier: An American writer, critic, amateur philosopher and magazine editor, Wieseltier served as the literary editor of The New Republic from 1983 to 2014. He is currently the Isaiah Berlin Senior Fellow in Culture and Policy at the Brookings Institution and a contributing editor and critic at The Atlantic.

About Sally Quinn: A quintessential Washingtonian, Quinn is an author, television reporter, and journalist who has worked and socialized with the city’s movers and shakers for several decades. For Quinn, the thread tying together the varied facets of her life is spirituality. The creator and moderator of The Washington Post’s religious blog OnFaith.com, the most visited religious site on the web, Quinn focuses on the values and rituals that have given her life meaning.

About Spirit of Georgetown: The Spirit of Georgetown is Georgetown Ministry Center’s highly-anticipated annual benefit. Held every fall in a historic Georgetown home, GMC honors someone who has helped make its work to find solutions to homelessness possible. This year’s Spirit will be hosted by author, journalist and long-time Washingtonian, Sally Quinn, and will honor Mayor Muriel Bowser for her leadership on issues of homelessness.

The 2017 Taste of Georgetown is fast-approaching on September 24th and Georgetown Ministry Center is seeking volunteers to help during the event!

GMC is the beneficiary of this long-running epicurean event that brings together the best of Georgetown’s culinary scene in one taste bud-tantalizing, fun-filled afternoon. We are seeking volunteers to help during the following shifts:

1/2 Day Shift: 10am-1pm

1/2 Day Shift: 1-5pm

Full Day Shift: 10am-5pm

Volunteers will receive 2 Tasting Tickets in return for volunteering. If you are interested in volunteering, please email carolyn@gmcgt.org to receive more info & sign up!

This week, Georgetown Ministry Center said a reluctant farewell to its Volunteer Coordinator, Melissa Bernard.

Melissa served as the Volunteer Coordinator at GMC for the past year as part of her commitment to the Jesuit Volunteer Corps (JVC), an organization whose mission is to engage its faith-committed volunteers in vital service within poor communities. After completing her undergraduate degree at Boston College in 2016 – a school she chose largely in part for its devotion to service and social justice – Melissa felt she wasn’t done growing in her faith with other young folks and wanted to continue to devote herself to the service work she had begun in school. “I really discovered a lot of what it meant to be spiritual to me at Boston College and wanted to continue to do that. I didn’t feel ‘done’ with a lot of the work I was doing,” she said.

In her placement through JVC, Melissa’s duties included working for the Georgetown University Campus Ministry and Center for Social Justice where she was responsible for coordinating homeless outreach programs, including scheduling volunteers for GMC and the hypothermia outreach program in the winter. She also played a huge role in organizing GMC’s 2016 5k Fundraiser, a task that she says, while challenging, was one of the highlights of her year. “I’d never done anything like that,” she said of planning the race. “I wanted it to be a really spectacular event for all involved and to hit our fundraising goals. Getting to work with Sarah (GMC’s Development Manager), churches in the area, so many community members and Georgetown students to make that happen – it was stressful at times but really worth it.”

Melissa goes on to begin a new job at Georgetown University and said she will miss the relationships she formed with guests at GMC. Prior to this experience, while she had served the homeless community before in different capacities, such as volunteering at soup kitchens, she said she “never really sat down with folks experiencing homelessness and listened to how difficult it is for them. I don’t think my year would have been as fulfilling if I didn’t have the chance to meet so many of our guests and form relationships and hear their struggles and their joys.”

We are grateful to Melissa for her many contributions over the past year and we wish her the very best in her new role at Georgetown University. From everyone at GMC, thank you, Melissa – you will be missed!

Georgetown Ministry Center welcomes Dr. John Tarim, M.D., as its new Consultant Psychiatrist! Dr. Tarim is currently a 4^th year Psychiatry resident at George Washington University after earning his M.D. from Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University and his B.A. from Columbia University. He will be providing psychotherapy and medication management for guests in the Center, in addition to serving those experiencing homelessness in our community through street outreach. Welcome, Dr. Tarim!

6:30 – 8:30pm

3014 N St NW, Washington, DC (Home of Sally Quinn)