WIN
Church of the Pilgrims member, Mary Lib Pate, with Mayor Adrian
Fenty and Pilgrims' City Council Member, Jack Evans.
Washington Interfaith Network (WIN) brings communities of faith from across the city together to train and develop neighborhood leaders, address community issues, and hold elected officials accountable. Part of the legendary Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF), WIN follows a long tradition of people-powered political and economic change. IAF groups like WIN understand power, and perhaps more importantly, they are not afraid of it. They appreciate the importance of building indigenous leaders, and admirably, they cultivate them. They recognize the need for broad-based membership, and welcome all races and classes. These elements are the key ingredients of any IAF campaign. IAF groups act – using just the right balance of power, leadership development, and broad-based membership – to move their specified target to reaction.
WIN supportere at DC Council meeting.
Unlike most membership-based organizations whose membership declines over time, WIN has grown to 55 member institutions since its inception in 1995. Over the years, city officials have pledged 900 community police officers, $30 million for after-school programs citywide, and funding for 1,000 Nehemiah homes on the heels of WIN pressure. More recently, WIN members fought the Mayor's $339 million proposal to construct a new baseball stadium. Deciding this money would be better spent improving conditions in their neighborhoods, WIN congregations pulled together, organized, and showed up in droves at a city meeting donning blue ‘Neighborhood First' baseball caps. Ultimately, their organized people power led to the passage of a $100 million dollar bond issue for large-scale blight removal and reconstruction of intensely devastated sections of Washington . Now, various WIN groups across the city are organizing to see how this money might best be spent. As part of this campaign, WIN churches in our neighborhood (Wards 1 &2) have successfully pressured Councilman Graham and Dave Clark, the Executive Director of DC's Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs (DCRA), to address a list of housing issues in Ward 1.
There are a variety of ways to get involved with WIN through Pilgrims. WIN team members attend city-wide Action Meetings, participate in WIN's Ward 1 Research Team, and build congregational support for WIN Actions. Please contact the pastor, Jeff Krehbiel, to learn more about Pilgrim's work with WIN!
You can find more information on the IAF at www.industrialareasfoundation.org .
Participants from Pilgrims Church at a WIN Get-Out-The-Vote gathering at Hughes UMC.
