The Righteous Indignation Project

How to Hold A Successful Interfaith Community Event

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An Abridged "How-To" Guide for Holding a Successful Interfaith Community Service Event during

"Fighting Poverty with Faith: A Week of Action"

1. Form a steering committee

Forming a local inter-religious steering committee is your first step towards creating a successful event. The Steering Committee's role will be to plan and run the event, and ideally the committee should include stakeholders/representatives from:

• Faith communities that agree to send participants
• Organizations hosting the service work
• Local interfaith organizations

As you think about whom you would like to have participate on your committee, map out various local religious institutions, and whenever possible, recruit people through whom you already have a personal connection. Refer to the Organizer's Toolkit (http://ifyc.org/system/files/DIYS+Toolkit.pdf ) generously provided by our partners at Interfaith Youth Core. Therein, you can find a list of specific responsibilities for steering committee members, a suggested timeline and talking points for recruitment. Start organizing the committee right away!

2. Recruit participants

An interfaith community service project is made great with great participants. So, how can you engage community members? Contact:

• Youth groups, adult education groups, etc... at local religious congregations
• Religious Student groups on high school and college campuses
• Interfaith organizations including advocacy groups, service providers, or activity groups with a religious theme; and
• Civic spaces like YMCAs, schools, Jewish Community Centers, and local service organizations

Introduce the day of service idea to youth advisors in religious communities to gain their support and engage youth people. Check out the Organizer's toolkit for recruitment talking points, registration tools and suggested guidelines.

3. Plan effective service

Planning an interfaith community service day is a unique way to engage in "Fighting Poverty with Faith: A Week of Action." It not only catalyzes personal transformation, but it shows our elected officials that we are holding both them and ourselves accountable to do more to fight poverty in America. Here are a couple of tips on making the service project meaningful:

• Do something hands on! Consider contacting your local 2nd Harvest Food Bank about assisting them for an afternoon, or the local Habitat for Humanity Chapter about a house the group can work on for the day.
• Be generous on reflection: leave some time at the end to discuss the shared value of service, interfaith understanding and spiritual reflection. Reflection can be an incredibly powerful opportunity!
• Follow-up! Make sure that you collect the contact information of everyone who participates. Interfaith service is a great entry point into the larger anti-poverty movement!

4. Creative effective reflection

We suggest that you facilitate participants' reflection using the exchange below. Based on the shared value of service, the curriculum invites participants to learn about each other through ways their faith inspires them to serve. A richer curriculum is available in the Organizer's Toolkit.

• Activity One - What does Service Mean to You? What does it mean to "serve"? Share a story about your most meaningful service experience.
• Activity Two - What does Service Mean to Your Faith Community? What does your faith tradition teach about service? Can you think of texts, stories, or people in your tradition that teach about service? How have people in your faith tradition served others? Do you have a story of serving others with your faith community?
• Activity Three - What Did the Participation in today's interfaith service project mean to you? What were the highlights of this service experience for you? What did you learn about poverty in America? How did you interact with people of other faiths? Did you learn anything interesting or surprising about another faith? What kinds of conversations did you have? How was the experience of serving with people of other faiths? Is interfaith service something you would like to do more of in the future? Why?
• Activity Four -How can we not only participate in direct service, but translate our awareness and partnership into an opportunity to be more engaged citizens in the political process? [Be prepared with resources on different public policies relating to hunger, housing, etc... that participants can learn more about]

5. Build momentum:

In addition to regular publicity, you can build momentum (and participation) prior to the interfaith week of action by:

• Holding a lead-up "icebreaker" event or phone call
• Invite members of the press to cover your event
• Distributing information about the site you'll be volunteering at or issue area you'll be addressing for people to read ahead of time
• Asking participants to calling into the "interfaith week of action launch call" featuring Senator John Edwards as a group at someone's home or a local church/temple/mosque/community center/ etc.... This call will give participants a context in which to locate their activism, connecting them to the other people across the country taking place in "Fighting Poverty with Faith: a Week of Action". The call will take place on September 9th at 8 PM Eastern Time and will issue a call to action on poverty issues as well as opportunities for local communities to engage on the issue.

6. Run your event

Your interfaith community service event can be as creative as you like. You may choose to extend the event over the weekend or keep it to a full or half-day event in order to accommodate your resources and the religious needs of interested communities. We recommend a good balance between service, creating a safe and motivational space, and dialogue/reflection motivating further relationship building and action.

Give your participants a sense that they are part of a large effort. Let them know that this is happening all over the country and provide them with some of the attached templates so that they can follow-up with a phone call/letter to the candidates or publish something about their experiences in the local paper or newsletter for their house of worship.

7. Wrap up your event. Your event is over, but there's still follow-up work to be done!

• Get feedback from key stakeholders and participants from your event
• Follow-up with any media contacts to ensure the best possible coverage
• Make sure that you thank your volunteers and all the people who made the event happen
• Urge participants to blog or write about their experiences and to follow-up by contacting their local, state and national candidates about poverty.

Go to the week's national website (insert here) to blog and write about your experiences and download materials that you can use to engage the candidates on poverty issues.