Watch a brief video about who we are and the community we serve.
We are manna.
MANNA (Many Angels Needed Now and Always) is a ministry formed with and for the unhoused community of downtown Boston. Founded in 2010, MANNA has been and continues to be a place where we learn what "community" can be together - a place where all are loved, empowered, and dignified in the fullness of our humanity.
We are not a government agency. We have no requirements for participation. We are not a proselytizing ministry. We open our doors to welcome all to a supportive environment where their needs will be met by trained and supported staff.
Community members celebrating at the Easter Vigil
We share poems and songs at Open Mic
Connect 4 is serious business at MANNA!
Much of our history is rooted at St Paul's Cathedral, where we hold all of our programming. Whether it be singing on the front steps or meditating inside the main sanctuary, MANNA's life as a community is an integral part of the Cathedral community as well as the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts.
While we are rooted in the Episcopal tradition, we believe that people of "all faiths and no faith" are meant to be a part of beloved community.
Mission
To provide a space for spiritual refuge and flourishing; To build a community of genuine belonging with the unhoused and unstably housed of Boston
Vision
For a world where the humanity of all is valued, the flourishing of every human being is supported, and where mutual love can deepen and grow.
Our Theology
We look for the face of God, whose name is Love, and follow the teachings of Jesus which call us to uphold the inherent belovedness of all we encounter.
Meet the Team
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Lead Pastor
jmccracken@diomass.org(she/her) Jennifer McCracken was ordained an Episcopal priest in January of 2019 and serves as the Head Pastor of the MANNA community. MANNA is a community of unsheltered, unhoused, and unstably housed individuals and is a ministry of the Cathedral Church of St. Paul, Boston. Jennifer served with the MANNA community for more than a decade as a lay chaplain prior to her ordination and now works full-time with the community. Jennifer helps facilitate the BACHome Council, a council of people with lived experience of homelessness who advise the Mayor of Boston on shelter reform and housing stabilization. Before becoming a priest, Jennifer worked as a Registered Nurse for more than thirty years, including leading mobile medical clinics in Leogane, Haiti, and as a staff nurse at Boston Health Care for the Homeless. Jennifer has a passion for accompanying and caring for people who live on the margins and believes they have something to teach us about life, love, and God.
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Chaplain
ctowers@diomass.org(she/her) Christie Towers serves as the full-time MANNA Chaplain. She entered into her work with the community as the co-leader of the Black Seed Writers Group alongside James Parker in 2018. As she grew in relationship with the writers and the wider community, Christie discovered a deep sense of belonging and a desire to explore the role of chaplain. In 2023, Christie graduated from Boston University’s School of Theology, earning an MDiv. She also holds an MFA in Poetry from the University of Massachusetts, Boston. You can read her writing about her work with MANNA during the covid-19 pandemic at Arrowsmith, an online journal. Her writing about the importance of storytelling and writing with the Black Seed Writers Group appears in Power of Our Stories Won’t Stop: Intergenerational Truth Telling as Civic Practice, published in 2023. Her first collection of poetry, And Again I Heard the Stars, was published in 2022.
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The Pilgrim Editor
(he/him) James Parker is a staff writer at The Atlantic. In 2017-18 he was the Institute of Liberal Arts journalism fellow at Boston College.
Since 2011, Parker has been running the Black Seed Writers Group-a weekly writing workshop for homeless, transitional, and recently housed writers-and editing The Pilgrim, a literary magazine from the homeless community of downtown Boston.
