Antillean lands $5M grant for faith storytelling project
Antillean Adventist University has received a $5 million grant from Lilly Endowment Inc. to support a five-year digital storytelling project focused on personal expressions of Christian faith rooted in Puerto Rico and the Central Florida diaspora.
The project, titled “Enduring Faith in the Face of Life’s Storms,” is part of the foundation’s National Storytelling Initiative on Christian Faith and Life 2025.
Antillean was the only Puerto Rico-based organization selected among 60 grantees nationwide, a group that includes media organizations, church networks, educational institutions and nonprofits.
The initiative will center on stories from individuals born between 1990 and 2009, whose lives have been shaped by Puerto Rico’s cultural heritage, migration patterns, the effects of hurricanes Irma and Maria and the island’s diverse Christian traditions.
University officials said a multidisciplinary team of faith leaders and storytellers will produce and distribute the narratives across digital platforms, with the goal of reaching younger audiences. The project is informed by research on religious beliefs and practices in Puerto Rico and seeks to document personal accounts of resilience, faith and identity.
“The people of Puerto Rico have endured multiple catastrophic storms, even within my own lifetime,” said Edwin I. Hernández, president of Antillean Adventist University. “Their extraordinary faith has anchored them in God’s everlasting love, guided them by His infinite light and protected them through His boundless grace. We look forward to sharing their stories of resilience, vitality and faith with the world.”
Lilly Endowment’s storytelling initiative is intended to support projects that reflect how Christian faith shapes daily life and to expand the reach of those stories through contemporary media platforms.
