Every organization, every community, even families, over time develop language that makes perfect sense to those who know, yet which can be totally opaque to those who don’t. Often a newcomer is able to pick up the meaning through context — like a new word you come across the meaning of which you can guess because of how it’s used in the sentence. Yet the words, phrases, and, acronyms that make up this language often point toward a much deeper meaning that you might guess at.
As an example: lots of people who’ve been around our congregation for a while know that IMPACT is some kind of social action program that we participate in each year. We might even know that it’s made up of a large number of faith communities in Charlottesville and Albemarle County. We almost certainly know that in the spring there’s a real push to get us to go to something called the Nehemiah Action. That’s all relatively easy to glean from the context in which we talk about IMPACT, and for many of us that’s both all we know, and all we feel we need to know.
Yet there is so much more to know, and the more you know the more you can appreciate how important IMPACT is.
“IMPACT” is an acronym standing for, “Interfaith Movement Promoting Action by Congregations Together.” It is an example of what’s known as congregation based community organizing (CBCO). There are a number of different ways that communities organize to affect change, yet they all share one fundamental premise: a lone voice speaking out can be easily drowned out, while hundreds or thousands of voices speaking as one can make themselves heard. CBCOs recognize that a lot of people are already gathered together in the various faith communities in an area, so if you can organize those faith communities together you can greatly expand your … well … your impact.
IMPACT brings together 27 of the faith communities in Charlottesville and Albemarle County — Baptists, Catholics, Jews, Seventh Day Adventists, Methodists, Quakers, Muslims, Presbyterians, non-denominational Christians, Pentecostals, Episcopalians, Lutherans, and us Unitarian Universalists. These are folks who might not normally come together, and who certainly don’t speak the same theological language or make the same religious assumptions. There is one thing, though — they all speak of, and are committed to, justice. Through IMPACT, these faith communities can combine their voices in a common call for justice not just as a slogan, but as made concrete through direct action.
In 2007, the efforts of IMPACT led to the expansion of bus service on two of the most heavily traveled routes (adding Sunday and evening service), and the creation of a new route that served the County Office building and low-income neighborhoods. This has made a real and significant impact on our community.
In 2008, IMPACT was instrumental in the creation of a free dental clinic with a full-time dentists and dental assistant. The first year saw a 1,165% increase in the number of people in the Charlottesville Albemarle area who could now get the dental care they needed without having to wait for it to get so bad they had to go to an emergency room. You’d better believe that that’s had an impact on the quality of life of the poor and marginalized in our community.
Over the years IMPACT has organized its member congregations to fight for the creation of an affordable housing trust fund in Charlottesville, and a commitment to increase housing funds in Albemarle County. Between the two, over 800 new units of affordable housing have been built or refurbished. (2001-20019) IMPACT’s efforts led to the regional jail and both the city and county police departments developing and implementing plans to address the serious lack of consistent quality language services for individuals with limited English proficiency. (2010) The city and county provided funding for Healthy Transitions, a psychiatric re-entry program to help address the immediate needs of ex-offenders when released from jail, largely because of pressure from IMPACT. (2011) These efforts didn’t lead to study groups or commissions to look into these problems — the resulted in real, substantive changes which have had a profound impact on our wider community.
Next Tuesday I will post again about IMPACT, writing about our — because IMPACT is us — most recent successes, as well as the effort we’re engaged in this year. I’ll end this post with one more example of the impact IMPACT has had: From 2012-2014 the “people power” which IMPACT represents led UVA Medical Center to create a new program that trains unemployed youth to be Certified Nursing Assistants, and get on the medical career ladder. During the first two-year pilot program, UVA planned to train 40 people. In January of 2017 they expanded the program, so that it now trains 80 people per year! 76% of students from the pilot program are now working full time as CNSs. The problem of youth employment in our area has had a serious impact on the community, and this new program, spurred on by the efforts of IMPACT, has had a profound impact on that problem.
A social action program of our congregation, through which we join with the people of 27 other faith communities, to make a real difference in the world? Absolutely, yet IMPACT is so much more than that. Next week I’ll write more about that.
Pax tecum,
RevWik