Supporting Migrant Communities

All Souls hosts the East Coast Migrant Headstart Project for Indiana in our lower floor. The mission of this Project is to serve children of migrant agricultural workers by providing resources to care for toddlers and infants, as well as early elementary education. Learn more here:  https://www.ecmhsp.org/about-us To learn more about this program at All Souls please email: office@allsoulsindy.org

Housing

All Souls participates in service projects in the community throughout the year. The largest and longest-standing tradition of service engagement is with the Interfaith Hospitality Network. The Interfaith Hospitality Network used to rely on a system of host churches who opened their facilities for families to stay for a period of a week at a time. Families First and the Interfaith Hospitality Network have shifted to an apartment model, where donations of time and resources from the same host churches go towards sheltering families in apartments. To learn more about this program, please email office@allsoulsindy.org

Renewal Energy Partnerships

All Souls Indy, with the aid Hoosier Interfaith Power and Light, secured a matching grant from the State of Indiana that funded our solar array which was installed in March of 2016.  Since then, we have generated over 70,000 Kilowatt hours of electricity.  HIPL helped us apply for the grant in which we described All Souls’ longtime commitment to the environment and the many projects the church had accomplished, such as the Butterfly Garden, recycling, and improving energy efficiency in our building.  After the solar  installation the grant required ASI to do more projects in our facility like upgrading our lighting to LEDs, replacing leaky doors and windows, and to get a large percentage of the congregation to undertake multiple energy conservation actions in their homes.  Upshots  from this multi-year effort to respond to Climate Change included several congregants installing solar on their homes, All Souls hosting public events showcasing Solar – with HIPL and Solar United Neighbors, and members pressuring the State Legislature to support roof top solar and urging Indianapolis Power and Light to use renewables to generate our electricity and to stop burning coal and oil.  Our latest initiative is to move ASI to emit Net Zero Carbon in its energy use. Learn more here: https://www.solarunitedneighbors.org/To learn more about our Green programs, please email office@allsoulsindy.org

Legislative Change

Though each person can offer individual charity to another person, only groups of dedicated people can change systems. We regularly work on improving the criminal justice system, working to keep immigrant families intact and safe, economic mobility and dignity, and mass transit. Our main partner in this work is Faith in Indiana. In 2014, All Souls joined IndyCAN (now Faith in Indiana) – a broad-based, interfaith coalition that focused on organizing and centering people otherwise at the margins. With this group, we participated in many actions and campaigns, including: blocking a problematic doubling of the number of beds in our city jail and, instead, forging a new plan that includes community investment and mental health diversion; a gun violence intervention strategy adopted by the city of Indianapolis; police accountability actions to reduce preventability police shootings; a rejection of place to build a new, federal immigrant detention center; a rapid response team to ICE raids; the adoption of money bail and other strategies to lower incarceration and allow for families to be together and more financially secure. 

In its third year as a member of the Indianapolis Congregational Action Network (IndyCAN), now named Faith In Action – Indiana, an affiliate of the national Faith In Action network, All Souls took a lead role in Get Out the Vote efforts to expand Indianapolis’ mass transit system.  The insufficient nature of the old bus system (e.g., 2-hour cross-town commutes) excluded our most marginalized workers to compete for higher paying jobs. From January thru July 2016, three-All Souls EarthCare Team (ASECT) members participated in IndyCAN’s Prophetic Leadership Training, with community members who testified how inadequate public transportation reflects broader issues of social, racial, economic, and environmental injustices. This training engendered one-on-one conversations with many All Souls members about mass transit and social/economic/environmental injustice. 

Protecting People and Planet

The All Souls EarthCare Team offers events, trainings, and updates of on climate change, environmental justice, local and national legislation, and tips on how to save energy. Most recently the Earthcare team applied for a grant from Keep Indianapolis Beautiful to plant a grove of Native Trees on the All Soul’s grounds. The purposes are beautification, to reclaim areas of turf grass (less mowing), to compensate for some of our greenhouse gas emissions, to make better use of a wet area of land, to enhance All Souls Trail, and to invite our neighbors onto our property to use the Grove and Trail. The grant required us to water and care for them for 3 years which will increase involvement of members with our land. When grant funding was rescinded due to COVID budget cuts, our members raised the money ourselves and planted our grove. For more info please email: office@allsoulsindy.org

Reducing Educational Disparities

Nowhere is the shadow of racism longer in American than when it comes to educational disparities. In an effort to help this disparity, we host the All Souls’ Children’s Defense Fund Freedom Schools® Program.  This proven, evidence-based program mitigates summer learning loss for 82% of participants by focusing on literacy,empowerment, good citizenship and cultural affirmation. During the summer, we utilize over 50 volunteers to help serve meals, welcome families, and offer enrichment programming. For more information on Freedom School check our our Faithify appeal here: https://faithify.org/projects/freedom-school-2020/

Women’s Rights and Reproductive Justice

During the Christmas season, we collect items to donate to Coburn Place families, and regularly donate to shelters housing domestic abuse survivors. During the legislative season, we work with Planned Parenthood to defend a woman’s right to choose.  We support Coburn Place’s mission “to empower people impacted by intimate partner violence in the Greater Indianapolis area. Our Vision is of a world where every adult and child may live free from abuse, housed stably and safely, with adequate financial resources.” Learn more here: https://coburnplace.org/

Read more about our social justice efforts here.