Learn more about Faith Linking in Action
Our faith calls us to be Faith Linking in Action–listening and hearing the cries of our brothers and sisters, as we seek:
1. to build a community of justice and dignity in the greater Bangor area
2. to find and empower leaders and change agents;
3. to demonstrate the love and mercy of God; and
4. to encourage transforming change in our neighborhoods.
St. Patrick’s was a part of creating this inter-faith group in 2012. St. Patrick’s with FLIA have developed and established a group of concerned faith and community organizations into action teams to work with our neighbors to live out our missions of finding dignity, justice, and love. In the Bangor area, FLIA is the only ecumenical social justice group. The FLIA Board of Directors is made up of clergy and lay representatives of all the member congregations. Initially an affiliate of Food AND Medicine (FAM), FLIA became an independent non-profit this year and is now using St. Patrick’s as its home address.
The current areas of focus for the FLIA Issue Teams are Childcare, an ongoing issue being addressed by this Team on both local and state levels; Transportation For All, another ongoing issue team working on increasing bus access and safety with FAM; Food Justice, a third ongoing team investigating issues around food access; and a newly formed Home Insecure/Houseless Team, addressing the issues affecting the home insecure and homeless in the Bangor area. The Childcare Team meets the second Tuesday of each month from 6-7:30 at First United Methodist Church, Essex Street, Bangor. For information regarding the Childcare Team, Transportation for All, or Food Justice Team meetings, email contactus@faithlinkinginaction.org. The newly formed Home Insecure/Houseless Team meets the first Tuesday of each month at 2:00 pm Via Zoom. Contact Peg Olson (peg.olson@faithlinkinginaction.org) for a link.
The entire FLIA organization gathers for Convenings twice a year to present ongoing education regarding our efforts, to encourage continued participation and support of our faith groups, to introduce other community concerns, and to continue to work together as people of faith. The Board accepts suggestions for topics of interest and names of speakers for the Convenings.
FLIA offers ongoing support to the efforts of FAM in the areas of improved bus transportation through Transportation For All and more than a dozen community gardens (including our Holyoke Street Neighborhood Garden) through the Food Access Committee. The professional advisor to these groups is FAM organizer Jack McKay. Contact him at jack@foodandmedicine.org for information about when and where these groups have meetings.
FLIA also continues to assist with many aspects of FAM’s Solidarity Harvest from helping to plan the harvest, providing volunteers to assemble the over 1400 Thanksgiving baskets of fresh food and a gift card for a turkey or other groceries (enough to feed 8-10 people each), to distributing them. Mary Ann Perry serves on the Solidarity Harvest Planning Committee.
For more information contact St. Patrick’s Representatives to FLIA: Peg Olson, Co-Chair (peg.olson@faithlinkinginaction.org); Gerri Stinson; and Rev. Lev Sherman.
