The Rev. Canon Hailey Jacobsen

The Rev. Canon Hailey Jacobsen previously served as Associate Rector at St. Paul’s Memorial Church at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, VA, where she oversaw fellowship and pastoral ministries for an intergenerationally-focused parish on the college campus. She attended Virginia Theological Seminary.

Before the priesthood, Hailey’s professional vocation was in non-profit fundraising and church stewardship with a focus on the importance of joy and the power of every gift. Her love of the spiritual practices of gratitude, generosity, and community building grew out of her first job in fundraising at a food bank and found a home in the Church at both The General Theological Seminary and Trinity Church in the City of Boston. In the US, Hailey also served in AmeriCorps at a middle school in a therapy-based program, working primarily with young immigrants and refugees from Central America and the Middle East.

Growing up Roman Catholic in Nashville, TN, Hailey first felt called to be a priest at the age of 10, not knowing that women priests existed. It was at Sewanee: the University of the South where Hailey, while studying English Literature with an emphasis on Renaissance drama and Shakespeare, found three things that would change her life forever: the Episcopal Church, a community of care and support unlike any other she had experienced, and her spouse Devin.

Hailey and Devin have been together 14 years and have lived in many places in the US, including Austin, Nashville, New York, Boston, and Washington D.C. They both served on placement in France in two Anglican parishes in Nice and Vence, where they fell in love with France through the eyes of the churches’ multicultural communities.