Leader Spotlight
Paths to Power: Rev. De Neice Welch
Rev. De Neice Welch wears a lot of hats: She’s the Senior Pastor of Bidwell Presbyterian Church; a bioethicist; a community organizer; a former candidate for the Pittsburgh City Council; and a former president of Gamaliel affiliate Pennsylvania Interfaith Impact Network (PIIN). But she insists that she would not have set her sights on most…
Gamaliel staff, alumni join effort to support Georgia voters in January runoff
Although Gamaliel doesn’t have an active affiliate in Georgia, several Gamaliel alumni and staff are working to support voters in the state’s Senate runoff election on January 5, 2020. Gamaliel Network Executive Director Ana Garcia-Ashley said that many key leaders from the inactive Gamaliel affiliate in Atlanta, Atlantans Building Leadership for Empowerment (ABLE), are…
Paths to Power: Victoria Jimenez-Morales
Gamaliel Board of Directors member and President of Gamaliel of California Victoria Jimenez-Morales doesn’t consider herself to be a community organizer, but she has been acutely aware of power since her childhood in California’s rural Central Valley. Jimenez-Morales’ first job was working in the fields alongside her parents in a town with several active…
MORE² seeks to ‘blaze a new trail’ for IVE in Kansas City, KS
If the leaders Gamaliel affiliate Metro Organization for Racial and Economic Equity (MORE²) have their way, Kansas City, Kansas, will become a model for voter engagement all over the country. Demographically, it’s a unique place. Kansas City is situated in Wyandotte County, which has no racial or ethnic majority. Although its population is approximately…
Paths to Power: Rev. Marlon Tilghman of BRIDGE Maryland
Rev. Marlon Tilghman had already cut his teeth as an organizer before he received any formal training. In 2009, Tilghman organized several community groups from the area around the congregation he pastored in the Baltimore area. His efforts caught the attention of BRIDGE (now Gamaliel statewide affiliate BRIDGE Maryland, Inc.) founder Rev. David Casey,…
Paths to Power: Sara Meyer of Quad Cities Interfaith
Although Sara Meyer was an active member of Gamaliel affiliate Quad Cities Interfaith (QCI), until recently, she was adamant that she did not want to attend Gamaliel’s National Leadership Training. Meyer, a member-at-large of the QCI Board of Directors, attended an Ntosake training and a handful of shorter trainings, but struggled with Gamaliel’s agitational…
Gamaliel training adapts to pandemic, prepares leaders to build power in any circumstances
From Sr. Cheryl Liske, National Training Director and Senior Trainer: On March 12th, when the World Health Organization declared a pandemic and our lives changed overnight, Gamaliel was threedays away from our week-long National Leadership Training in Nashville. The training obviously wasn’t going to happen, but waiting for the pandemic to end wasn’t going to work…
IVE efforts breathe new life into PIIN, raise organization’s profile among congregations
Integrated Voter Engagement (IVE) is a strategy to connect organizers to the communities in which they work; it serves to build a relationship with the community and catalyze future organizing efforts. For Gamaliel affiliate Pennsylvania Interfaith Impact Network (PIIN), IVE in the 2020 election season was not just a strategy for building power in the…
Karym Sánchez
Karym Sánchez, 24, inspires youth to rally for a cause This profile of North Bay Organizing Project youth organizer Karym Sanchez is reprinted with permission from La Voz Bilingual Newspaper of Santa Rosa County, CA. (Photo by Jeff Kan Lee) Karym Sanchez still remembers the title of the essay he submitted for the Juvenile Justice Commission…
Rev. Dr. John Welch talks about the work of Gamaliel on “The Inclusive Voice with Host Pam McElvane”
On July 16, Rev. Dr. John Welch, Gamaliel board chair, sat down with Pamela McElvane, on her weekly radio show, “The Inclusive Voice with Host Pam McElvane” (WCPT Radio 820 AM), to talk about the impact that Gamaliel is having on communities across this country. You can listen to the interview here: https://soundcloud.com/wcpt820/the-inclusive-voice-show-with-host-pam-mcelvane-071622 Pam is…