Mrs. Yerkey Goes to Washington

Hello – I’m Rachel Yerkey and I serve with the Michigan AmeriCorps Partnership.

Interfaith Action, my service site at the Ginsberg Center for Community Service and Learning at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, is a program that brings together students for interfaith service work and dialogue. This past October, I had the opportunity to spend three days in Washington, D.C. with two of my students as part of the Interfaith Youth Core’s (IFYC’s) Interfaith Leadership Institute. This institute, co-sponsored by the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships (yes, President Obama had a hand in this institute!), was a kickoff for a series of year-long events for interfaith groups at college and university campuses around the nation.

During the course of the three days, 100 staff members and 200 students had a chance to connect, share ideas, get inspired, and learn about the IFYC’s “Better Together” campaign. As interfaith leaders, we gained valuable skills to help us build awareness for interfaith cooperation across campus, engage religious diversity on campus in a positive way, expand interfaith programs on campus, and support student leaders at the head of interfaith programming on campus.

The institute included a trip inside the White House (in the West Wing! We had passes!) for a conference with speakers Eboo Patel (founder and head of the IFYC, columnist for the Washington Post, and advisor to the President), Joshua DuBois (head of the Office of Faith Based and Neighborhood Partnerships), and John Kelly (Director for Strategic Partnerships with the Corporation for National and Community Service). We also came together as campus program directors and discussed what actually makes a campus safe and inclusive for all faith backgrounds, and not just tolerant. We talked about how our individual campuses – the offices of student affairs, residential life, the academic side of things, etc. – are (or, more frequently are NOT) helpful in working with us on issues around faith, spirituality, and religion.

From this institute, we came back with a very clear action plan for our student group here at U-M. Starting next semester, we are going to be running a “Better Together” campaign, centered on the idea that if people of all faiths work together on one issue area, we can all be better together. Our focus area is sexual assault and domestic violence – an issue often glossed over or ignored entirely within communities of faith. Partnering with our student group, faith communities on campus and in the community, and SAPAC and Safe House (sexual assault and domestic violence prevention programs in Washtenaw County), we hope to raise $40,000 (about $1 per student on U-M’s campus) to donate to Safe House, train religious leaders on how to start conversations within their communities on these issues, and have interfaith dialogues on sexual assault and domestic violence once conversations are started within individual religious communities.

So many times I get wrapped up in the “bubble” that is my service site, and I forget I am a part of something larger. Connecting with other people from around the country (and even a few international students and staff members!) was a great reminder of the larger cause. Just like my AmeriCorps network, there are people all across the country doing the same thing; struggling with the same issues, excited to hear about my successes, willing to be resources when I need help, and all working towards a better future.