Volunteers build understanding and deep relationships through learning community events.
Volunteers get to know one another, learn from nationally renowned speakers, engage in interfaith dialogue, and develop strategies to engage others in the work of creating real, systemic change in Greater Saint Paul.
2023 – 2024 Learning Community Events
Greater St. Paul is home to practitioners of multiple religious traditions. What stories, values, and practices from our traditions compel us to engage in volunteer and social justice work in our community?
This year, Interfaith Action’s learning community events will invite dialogue among religious practitioners about why and how they volunteer in their community. Each event will put a spotlight on leaders from two different traditions, inviting people from all religious backgrounds (and none) to connect more deeply around our shared value of providing stability and economic mobility in our community.
Thursday, October 26, 6-7:30 pm
Held at Clouds in Water Zen Center
We listened to (and then practiced together!) dialogue between Myoshin Diane Benjamin, Clouds in Water lay teacher, and Celeste Finn, Spiritual Assembly of the Baha’i St. Paul member.
Contact
Contact Phil Romine
Director, Opportunity Saint Paul, 651-661-9350
promine@interfaithaction.org
2022 – 2023 Learning Community Events
This past year, Interfaith Action put a spotlight on individuals who’ve dedicated their lives to creating opportunities for people around (and often beyond) St. Paul. They represent the ordinary and the extraordinary potential for all of us to create a more just community.
Mary Mackbee
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Mary Morrell Mackbee was born and raised in segregated New Orleans. After graduating from Xavier University, she accepted a teaching position in Minnesota where over the course of a distinguished 50-year career she changed the face of public education in Saint Paul Public Schools. She was the first female appointed as a high school assistant principal and the first African-American female appointed as a high school principal.
LaVon Lee
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LaVon is the executive director/head of school at the Montessori American Indian Childcare Center. She served as executive director of the American Indian Family Center for ten years and program director at the Grotto Foundation. She also founded the Tiwahe Foundation and served as its administrator.
Otis Zanders
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Otis Zanders is the recently retired CEO of Ujamaa Place, a St. Paul-based non-profit that provides holistic transformation opportunities for young Black men experiencing inequity at the intersection of race and poverty, helping them achieve brotherhood, stability, and personal success.