A chance meeting becomes a chance calling when O.C. pastor accepts special mission (Daily Pilot, Dec. 1, 2025): A chance encounter on a flight in the summer of 2025 with an Air Force captain led to the Rev. Canon Cindy Evans Voorhees taking the captain’s mother’s ashes back to Ukraine to be interred there. The captain “explained that she had moved her mother to the U.S. to take care of her when she became ill and that her mother had died two years ago. ‘She then asked me right there on the exit ramp if I would take her mother’s ashes with me if I were to go back to Ukraine,’”—which she did, in August of 2025.
Concert of gratitude: Ukrainian Cultural Forces performs in Newport Beach (Daily Pilot, Nov. 13, 2024): Susan Hoffman in the Daily Pilot covers the visit to St. James of the Ukrainian Cultural Forces, who played during the 10 o’clock service and held a concert afterwards on Nov. 10, 2024. “At home, Cultural Forces members take their instruments to the front lines, playing for soldiers to boost morale among the troops. They arrived at St. James Episcopal Church on Sunday armed not with weapons but with their voices and instruments, including the traditional Ukrainian bandura.”
Every dog has its day when St. James welcomes pets for Blessing of the Animals (Daily Pilot, Oct. 9, 2024): The Daily Pilot highlights our annual Blessing of the Animals service, noting that Rev. Cindy says that the Blessing of the Animals is the third holiest day of the year, after Christmas and Easter, here at St. James!
Newport Beach resident told herself to ‘just go’ to Ukraine (Daily Pilot, Aug. 30, 2022):“Imagine seeing a procession of Russian military tanks randomly blowing up buildings as it travels along Newport Boulevard toward the harbor. ¶ That was the image that struck the Rev. Canon Cindy Evans Voorhees when she first set foot on Ukraine soil amid the devastation. ¶ ‘I was waking up at 3 in the morning, worrying about the innocent people being slaughtered in Ukraine,’ Voorhees told the Daily Pilot. ‘I just wanted to be a neutral eyewitness — not a reporter or politician — and see where I could help as one person.’”
Faithful pets celebrated in annual Blessing of the Animals at area churches (Daily Pilot, Oct. 6, 2021): The Daily Pilot highlights the Blessing of the Animals services at various churches in coastal Orange County, including ours at St. James, where a pig and a “unicorn” were blessed, among others.
Inclusivity a watchword at Newport Beach church during Pride Month and beyond (Daily Pilot, June 23, 2021): The Daily Pilot covers Pride Month at St. James, noting how inclusivity is one of our core values, and highlights Rev. Cindy’s “Altarside Chat” with Joshua Vecchione, who transitioned from female to male back in 1977.
St. James Episcopal Church celebrates Pride Month in June (Daily Pilot, June 5, 2021): The Daily Pilot shows photographs of our church lit up in Pride colors during the month of June.
Churches Join Forces to Help Struggling Employees in the Shadow of Disneyland (The Living Church, April 16, 2021): St. James’ sister church, St. Michael’s in Anaheim, has been hard-hit by the COVID-19 crisis; many of its parishioners are essential workers. Rev. Cindy hopes that “this is a long-lasting relationship [between the two churches] where we share each other’s successes and burdens as we move toward the common goal of bringing in the kingdom of God.”
Trauma in times of COVID-19 tackled in Newport Beach church’s Zoom series (Daily Pilot, Feb. 24, 2021): The Daily Pilot ran an article on our collective trauma summit in the spring of 2021, and how the time of COVID affected our congregation.
Newport class makes astronomy accessible to visually impaired (Daily Pilot, May 17, 2019): St. James’ iDATA class, which has taught astronomy to both visually impaired and non-visually impaired students, is profiled in this article. These days, astronomy is more about data and programming, and less about peering into telescopes, making it accessible for visually impaired students.
Most Influential 2017: Meet the 100 top influencers in Orange County: The Rev. Canon Cindy Voorhees #4 of 101: (Orange County Register, Dec. 22, 2017). To see Rev. Cindy, scroll all the way down through the page.