Highlights from the Inspired to Serve Site in St. Paul

SPACC
The St. Paul pilot city organized the Twin Cities Interfaith Youth Leadership Coalition, which uses interfaith service-learning and dialogue to develop youth leaders who are agents for change in their faith and civic communities. The coalition is co-sponsored by the Jewish Community Relations Council of Minnesota and the Dakotas. Youth of all religions and unaffiliated youth are invited to participate and build positive relationships across religious and other barriers that divide through a variety of coalition activities, including the Interfaith Youth Day of Service.

Accomplishments

  • Youth planned and organized the annual Interfaith Youth Day of Service, with support from adult allies/staff. They worked with eight community organizations that address homelessness or literacy, and nearly 200 youth and adult allies participated.
  • Received the Governor’s Council on Faith-based and Community Service 2009 Best Practices Award.
  • Organized Youth Leadership Coalition, with a core of 12 youth who led discussions and activities, set their own agenda, and lent a strong youth voice to the program that had previously been mostly adult-led.
  • Commissioned TVbyGirls to produce a youth-produced documentary about the St. Paul site of Inspired to Serve.

Stories

Responding to Homelessness

After meeting with community leaders to learn about homelessness and literacy in the Twin Cities, discussing how religiously diverse young people can make a difference, and brainstorming ways they could respond, 12 youth worked in teams to plan and organize the fourth annual Interfaith Youth Day of Service. Nearly 200 youth and adults participated, representing Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Baha’i, Unitarian, Pagan, Atheist, unaffiliated, and other religious traditions.
 
The youth set up eight service projects with literacy and homelessness organizations, designing and leading reflection workshops using various means of creative expression (video, art, poetry, letter-writing, discussion), publicity and media outreach, arranging logistics, soliciting donations, and emcee-ing the event and leading their peers. The Youth Leadership Coalition continued to meet throughout the year, working with a professional artist to reflect on what it means to be an interfaith leader and activist, volunteering at an overnight shelter serving families experiencing homelessness, visiting houses of worship, and continuing to develop friendships across religious and other barriers.

Books for Africa

Nearly 100 Jewish and Somali Muslim 7th-8th grade students met several times throughout the year to learn about the similarities and differences between their religious traditions, build community, learn about literacy issues, and volunteer as reading buddies with elementary students and with Books for Africa to sort, package, and ship books to schools in Africa. A small group of students from both schools served on a Student Advisory Council to plan and lead activities.

Partners

  • Baha’i Spiritual Assembly of Saint Paul
  • Benilde-St Margaret’s School
  • Blake School
  • CAIR-MN
  • Camphor Memorial United Methodist Church
  • College of St Catherine- Muslim Student Association and Theology Club
  • Corpus Christi Catholic Church
  • Dar Al Hijrah Islamic Civic Center
  • Greater Minneapolis Council of Churches
  • Heilicher Minneapolis Jewish Day School
  • Hennepin Avenue United Methodist Church
  • Islamic Resource Group
  • Jay Phillips Center for Interfaith Learning at Saint John’s University and University of St Thomas
  • Jewish Community Relations Council of Minnesota and the Dakotas
  • Macalester College
  • Muslim American Society of Minnesota
  • Muslim Youth of Minnesota
  • Saint Paul Interfaith Network (SPIN)
  • TVbyGirls
  • Unity Church-Unitarian
  • University of St Thomas
  • Westminster Presbyterian Church

    •