Deacon Ted Hallenbeck receives 2013 Steere House Legacy Award and is named Autumn’s Promise Honoree

On Friday evening, October 4^th, at 7:00, The Rev. Dcn. Ted Hallenbeck will be honored to receive the Steere House Legacy Award.  For the last 17 years, Ted has served on the Board of Directors of Steere House, a 120 bed skilled Nursing care facility on the campus of Rhode Island Hospital. The last 7 years he has also been treasurer, as they have worked through an assortment of difficult issues, until his retirement this year.

 

Ted has served as a trustee for South Providence Neighborhood Ministries and became a board member in 1998, and a year later he became a board member of Ocean State Assisted Living, a joint effort between Steere House and Scandinavian Home.  Steere House has awarded Ted Hallenbeck the 2013 Legacy Award and named him the Autumn’s Promise Honoree.

 

Ted has been a deacon in the Diocese of Rhode Island since 1985.  He came to Rhode Island in 1957, working in college and university administration.  He helped to create the Community College of Rhode Island and helped to improve and upgrade both URI and RI College.  He was involved in the building of the Bristol campus of Roger Williams College.  After that, he helped to create the nationwide University Without Walls, which is an alternative higher education program.

 

After working in organizational development and fundraising with churches, nursing homes and agencies, he began to feel a call to serve as a deacon.  He has worked on various diocesan groups, including Diocesan Council and its Executive Committee, Commission on Finance, Program and Budget Committee, Episcopal Charities Board and the 2015 Task Force for Strategic Needs and Planning.  Ted says of his time and work in these areas, “This is a very healthy and exciting time as together with a new Bishop we figure out how to work together effectively and tackle an assortment of issues, some new, some old.  And it looks like 2013 and 2014 will be a busy time!”  He is pictured here, with other deacons at the Diakonia of the Americas and the Caribbean (DOTAC) conference in Trinidad.  Ted has served for 17 years on the Executive Committee and 8 years as Treasurer of DOTAC.

 

Ted serves The Fund for the Diaconate as its President, and works especially on Grant Coordination with the Ven. Bill Jones.  The Fund focuses on improving the ways we assist and support deacons.

 

Ted says of their work through the Fund, “Recent experience has shown us that we can be of assistance that is not necessarily financial. We need to broaden our support pattern and linkages to involving others in assisting deacons.”

 

Ted has also served as Executive Director of the North American Association for the Diaconate from 1989 to 2004.  Today, he is a retired deacon at Saint Luke’s Church, East Greenwich, and helps as needed.

 

Pictured here with Dutton Moorehouse, past editor of Diakonia, at the 2006 TEC General Convention in Coilumbus, Ohio.

 

 

Ted’s wife, Pat taught New Testament in the RI School for Deacons for many years.

 

Ted ended our time together by musing a bit about the future.  “Arriving at age 86 and encountering an assortment of limiting health related concerns, means that I cannot do what the younger folks do, or I once did.  I limit my commitments and activities, now primarily focused on Diocese of Rhode Island groups, which I am delighted to serve and will continue to do so as long as I am able and useful.”