Rev. Dr. Gregory Edwards
Executive Director
POWER Interfaith
Executive Director
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Sara Melton
Managing Director of Organizing
2024 was an eventful and productive year for POWER Interfaith.
Roadmap to Justice
Building on 2023’s house meeting and listening campaign, we began the year hosted preparing to host our first statewide interfaith convention – February 19, 2024 Roadmap to Justice Convention – on February 19, 2024. The convention Roadmap to Justice brought together more than 400 faith leaders, congregation members, and members of communities from the statecommunity faith leaders. We discussed the current political climate, planned for the coming year, and led a dialog with PA House Majority Leader Matt Bradford and Education Chair Pete Schweyer. After hearing from Leader Bradford and Chairman Schweyer that they doubted they had enough power in the legislature to protect 2024-25 public education funding from new private school vouchers, POWER leaders met with more than 40 PA House representatives, and called and emailed others, to ensure they understood why vouchers are bad for public education. Partners and allied organizations across the state wielded their power in the Senate, and the final budget passed with no new vouchers.
Civic Engagement
In the spring, POWER’s Democracy Fellows knocked on 22,000 doors and made, with help from POWER faith leaders, more than 10,000 phone calls, having more than 6,000 total conversations with prospective voters to drive turnout for Pennsylvania’s primary election. Several Democracy Fellows returned, along with new additions to the team, teaming up with volunteers to canvass another 143,000 doors and 140,000 phone calls, and nearly 60,000 text messages in Philadelphia, Lancaster County, Montgomery County, and the Lehigh Valley this fall. The more than 30,000 live conversations we had not only helped turn out voters, but built our organizing capacity and power. Canvassing and phone scripts include asking voters what they know and how they feel about the issues around which POWER organizes, so that we are able to engage and follow up with those who have potential interest in POWER’s ongoing organizing work.
POWER #BlackFaithVotesPA clergy leaders built on the success of 2023’s Soul Food Dinner program pilot, organizing 150 dinners hosted by members of more than 60 African American Christian and Muslim congregations across the Commonwealth. Hosts were given a $250 stipend, a conversationplanning guide, video and materials to share with guests, including voter commitment cards. Guests hadve intergenerational conversations about the importance and mechanics of voting, and the issues that impact them the mostcommunities. We engaged more than 1,000 guests in intergenerational dialog about the importance of civic participation, collected more than 800 voter commitment cards, and engaged new leaders in our organizing work. Voter commitment cards are a vital tool in our efforts—they allow us to collect contact information from voters so we can remind them to vote and help them create a concrete voting plan for Election Day. Additionally, tThe #BlackFaithVotes team also supported 20 Black congregations hosting voter registration drives throughout the election season.
Live Free
POWER Interfaith celebrated 2023’s continued decline in violence in Pennsylvania and across the country. Still, there was much to be done this year, and our Live Free team has been hard at work to ensure that trend continues, that our prisons will soon no longer be filled disproportionately with Black and Brown bodies, that society invests in our communities to help them thrive, and that police are held to the highest standards of accountability.
Throughout the year Live Free’s Ending Mass Incarceration Team supported geriatric/medical parole for those who have served 25 years of their sentence, and partnered with allies to end solitary confinement. For more than two years POWER Live Free has participated in Philadelphia’s 911 triage meetings advocating for increased non-police responses to mental health crises. We helped secure increased funding for such interventions and insisted on greater transparency so that the public could access an accounting of all police and non-police responses to 911/988 behavioral health calls.
Live Free’s Police Accountability Team is currently working to change the grievance arbitration portion of PA Act 111, so that police officers guilty of misconduct receive appropriate discipline and consequences through arbitration. We’re also calling for greater transparency in both the contract and grievance portions of the arbitration process, with results provided to the public. After attempts to bring about change legislatively with no success in the PA Legislature, we are turning our focus to the City/Fraternal Order of Police contract and changes the City of Philadelphia can pursue to bring consistency and accountability to the arbitration process.
Live Free’s Immigration Justice Team has been supporting the Driving PA Forward campaign, advocating for drivers licenses being made available to all regardless of immigration status. This policy would increase public safety and revenue, and encourage fuller participation in communities for immigrants. As we brace for 2025’s anticipated federal immigration crackdowns, we’re working to strengthen ties with the organizations leading the work to protect immigrants in Pennsylvania.
Education
We’re SO close to winning our fight for full, equitable public education funding in Pennsylvania! With significant pressure from POWER and our allies, the PA legislature passed a 2024-25 budget that included nearly $500 million in new basic education funding, plus an additional increase in “Level Up” funding for our most underfunded districts, increased accountability for cyber charter schools, and no new private school vouchers, which draw funds away from our public schools.
Affordable Housing
In Philadelphia, POWER faith leaders hosted 43 house meetings, having conversations with more than 7600 Philadelphians about housing affordability and its impact on community safety, gentrification, education, and more. Meetings were held in every major neighborhood in the city, and in 9 out of 10 council districts. The data we collected was used to plan a January 26, 2025 Philadelphia leadership assembly to launch a housing affordability campaign.
The organizing work hasn’t been the only thing happening at POWER this year, though it is the reason for all we do. Early this year, Executive Director Bishop Dwayne Royster stepped away to serve as Interim Executive Director for the Faith in Action Network, with Chief of Staff Rev. Dr. Greg Edwards stepping up as Acting Executive Director. In March, we finalized our first three-year collective bargaining agreement. June came with the announcement that Bishop Royster would accept the permanent position of Faith in Action Executive Director and that Rev. Dr. Edwards would assume the role of Interim ED. In August, the POWER board and staff came together for a 4-day retreat to plan, strategize, and build relationships. In addition to the GOTV and voter engagement work, our staff and leaders will devote significant time and energy to preparing for any possible outcome of November’s election, with scenario planning, de-escalation training, and plenty of self-care and mutual support. Closing out the year in December, Interim Executive Director Rev. Dr. Edwards was named Executive Director by POWER’s Board of Directors, setting us up for a powerful 2025!
“The segregation in our schools and lack of resources for children of color in our state continue to prevent the equal education promised by Brown vs. Board of Education sixty-seven years ago. We need to do better than this!”
“I worked with curious, eager children as a volunteer in a Philadelphia public school kindergarten. They had a deep desire to learn but conditions were tragically far from what they needed to succeed. Full, fair funding would go a long way to help them.”
“Our children matter! They are entitled to a quality education, which will open the door to unlimited possibilities for them.”
“We are the village it takes to raise children. We are all responsible. Our hopes for a better tomorrow are linked with them.”
“It feels very core for me both as a parent and grandparent and as a reflection of my background in early childhood education and the moral values of my faith.”
“I continue to show up in support of equity in resources for our state’s children because some are my grandchildren, some are children and grandchildren of students I taught in my career in Philadelphia public schools, and some live on my block right now. Their world is my world.”
