Projects
ION Projects and Public Statements
The great challenges facing our world today seem utterly intractable. Faith-based work may open up hearts where intellectual and political efforts fail. Through advocacy and education efforts, we build relationships and partner with other faith and civic groups, uniting our diverse voices and faith traditions to uphold our shared values of peace and diversity and to challenge discrimination and injustice.
Here are some examples of projects, events that ION has organized in the past as well as public statements.
Projects growing out of our faith communities’ shared concerns:
Neighbors Together: Helping Open Hampshire Mosque. Our local mosque had been struggling against great challenges for years to open the doors to a new building. Area congregations joined hands to raise $40,000 to help them over the final hurdle. We listened as they spoke about what their faith means to them, and we shared a meal prepared by Muslim families from many parts of the world. Many members of the mosque told us they had never before experienced non-Muslims doing anything like this to assist Muslims.
Standing Together: Restoring Goodwin Church. One of the first Black led churches in Amherst, the Goodwin Memorial AME Zion congregation, had grown too small to pay for the major restoration needed on their historic small chapel. Many congregations came together to help them raise the funds needed to do the work, and we, in turn, learned about the beliefs and practices of a traditional Black church.
400 Years Project. The New England Peace Pagoda has been nurturing close relationships with Native American people in our region for many years. In 2020, as the 400th anniversary of the beginning of settler colonization in the Northeast approached, the monks of the Peace Pagoda asked other faith congregations to join them in learning from Native peoples. Following a 3 day walk from the Sojourner Truth statue in Florence to Unity Park in Turners Falls, hundreds attended a two-and-a-half-hour program that ION sponsored and raised funds to support four Indigenous projects in the region.
Interfaith Solidarity. ION groups reached out to offer support, hold vigils, and write statements following the horrific massacres at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh and two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand.
Solidarity with Immigrants and Asylum Seekers.
Many members of ION congregations were deeply involved in offering ongoing support to Lucio Perez during his sanctuary time in First Church Amherst.
When the US was separating families at the border a number of people active in ION congregations started a weekly vigil in the center of Amherst in support of immigrant families. This interfaith vigil for peace and justice continues to this day to gather on Tuesday afternoons in front of Bank of America, lifting up a variety of concerns on the hearts of participants.
ION cosponsored a musical fundraiser at Immanuel Lutheran Church for Pioneer Valley Interfaith Refugee Action Group (PVIRAG).
Racial Justice Concerns
ION organized a large interfaith vigil on the Amherst town common to respond to the murder of George Floyd in May 2020. The interfaith vigil in Amherst often reads the names outloud of the victims of racial, ethnic, or sectarian violence. One of our congregations, Center Church in South Hadley, held an interfaith vigil in front of their church for several years following the murder of George Floyd.
In January 2022, ION Organized a community-wide gathering on the Faith Roots of Reparative Justice, featuring Dr. William Smith (Smitty) Founder and Chair of the Baha’i inspired National Center for Race Amity, and Rev. Dr. Jacquelyn Smith-Crooks, an ordained minister and a member of the extended family of Goodwin Memorial AME Zion Church in Amherst. They were joined with commentary from Jeff Gold, from the Jewish Community of Amherst, and Shaykh Mirza Yawar Baig, Iman of the Hampshire Mosque. We took time together for prayer, song, getting acquainted and developing relationships with people concerned for racial justice from faith communities across the North Valley.
Annually – on the 2nd Sunday of June – ION co-sponsors the Amherst Town observance and celebration of Race Amity Day, joining with the Human Rights Commission, Citizens for Racial Amity Now!, the Amherst Baha’i Assembly, and the League of Woman voters for a celebration of the Oneness of the Human Family, with a community picnic and a joint program for Race Amity Day and Youth Hero Awards.
We have supported an intensive five-week class developed by our local synagogue — The Stolen Beam — to delve deeply into the issue of reparations for Black Americans: publicizing and co-sponsoring the courses, co-facilitating sections, and contributing materials for the course from our own faith communities’ experiences.
A number of our congregations have active racial justice committees.
Climate Change and Care for the Earth.
Members of ION congregations were directly involved in organizing a one day gathering at First Church Amherst in summer of 2012. This gathering led directly to the formation of Climate Action Now of Western Massachusetts, the leading climate action movement in our region.
ION organized a public vigil on Amherst Common at the opening of the 2015 UN Climate Conference (COP21) held in Paris. Members of various faith communities in ION offered prayers, songs, and scripture readings and the bell of Grace Church was rung out.
In 2017 members of many ION congregations helped to organize Prayers for the Planet, a gathering of over 300 people in a circus tent outside Beth Israel in Northampton.
ION organized an online gathering for those involved in climate work in our congregations.
Many of our congregations are deeply involved in work to combat climate change and care for the earth. Many of committees working actively on these concerns. South Church in Amherst and Mt Toby Friends Meeting both installed solar panels and heat pumps on their buildings to greatly reduce their carbon footprints. Many congregations are involved in Massachusetts Interfaith Power & Light.
ION Public Statements:
When ION representatives feel there is a strong shared concern among our contributions we have issued public statement. We only issue these statements when it is clear that they reflect the values of all of our participating congregations and campus ministries.
These have included statements on the following issues:
- Removing language and imagery offensive to Indigenous people in our state from the Massachusetts state flag and seal.
- Expressing the importance of people of all faiths standing in solidarity with the victims of anti-semitism and Islamophobia. I Need You to Survive (2017 op-ed piece)
- Calling for the US government to set up a National Truth and Healing Commission around Indian boarding schools.