Pastor Grace Baldridge was born in Illinois and moved to Milwaukee when she was entering kindergarten. Grace attended Hamline University, a United Methodist College, in Saint Paul, MN for her four-year degree.

After three years as a youth director in Albuquerque, NM in an ELCA church, Grace returned to the Midwest. She received her seminary degree at Garrett Evangelical Theological Seminary on the campus of Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill.

Pastor Grace as been on several mission trips starting in high school through the present in the US and Internationally. She has found that those we think we are there to help end up changing our lives instead.

A pastor since 2006, she has served different regions of Wisconsin. Most recently while serving in Durand for 8 years, she was on the Food Pantry Board in Pepin County. Pastor Grace has been the pastor at Hayward United Methodist Church since 2022. She says, “The call on my heart is to share the good news with those who desperately need a word of hope. The Safe Place Warming House will be a place to comfort the lost by serving their basic human needs.”