When I was in seminary, our very old, very thin, very traditional, and venerable Liturgics Professor always spoke in a very low voice. He enunciated very clearly or taking notes would have been an exercise in futility.

One day he quietly unfurled a story about introducing Sixties “revisions” to the Book of Common Prayer. After the service, a parishioner complained about a versicle in Morning Prayer – “let not the hope of the poor be taken away.” The parishioner raised his voice in outrage, “That’s Communism!” Our professor, in our class years removed from the incident raised his voice in frustration and said, “It’s the Psalms!”

The Episcopal Church has changed since those days. Debates on sexuality may dominate some people’s theological passions and the media’s need for a circus, but the Episcopal Church keeps committing itself more fully to the hopes of the poor, and July’s General Convention was no exception. In spite of budget cuts, the Convention re-committed funds to the Millennium Development Goals and the Presiding Bishop reiterated her commitment to respond to domestic poverty.

What the Church says perhaps mostly in prayer and in theory, the Jubilee Consortium enacts in practice. Those of us involved in the Jubilee Consortium know that the hopes of the poor are many, but they include health and well-being, and a yearning that the next generation not be swallowed up by violence or stigmatized by the pockmarks of poverty.

Those of us involved in the Jubilee Consortium also know that tying our lives to the hopes of the poor is meaningful but hard work. Tangible and effective responses to ethical and ethereal commitments are always remarkably tricky. As the Jewish theologian Martin Buber said, “It is difficult, terribly difficult, to drive the plowshare of the normative principle into the hard soil of political reality.”

Theories can be inspiring. The interchange of ideas can be fun. Words are easy. Conventions make statements. Churches make pronouncements. Making ethics break through the hard soil of life is backbreaking and sometimes spirit-sinking work. But that is precisely what the Jubilee Consortium does. We apply our faith, our ethics, and our commitment and bring them to bear in local communities, very hard places indeed.

“Communism” has been replaced as an epithet by other bugaboos, but responding to the hope of the poor was never about communism. It’s a matter of commitment. It’s the Psalms (stupid)! It’s part of our faith. And through Jubilee, it’s part of our life.

How wonderful it is that no one need wait a single moment to start improving the world. – Anne Frank, age 14.

Recently, I was introduced to a wonderful youth leadership program – YouthGive, a nonprofit organization that is building a community of giving created and guided by young people. The YouthGive idea is a simple one, guided by the clarity of an eight-year-old. Philanthropy is not just for grown-ups, celebrities and billionaires. Kids/youth have imaginative spirits and want to help others. Young people need tools to cultivate and tap the giving gene we all share. The Internet shrinks the world, creating new and powerful opportunities for local and global connection. A true start to improving the world … no one is too young, no one needs to wait. [YouthGive-The New Currency of Change]

As adults in leadership roles, we must promote the character and competence of all young people growing up in today’s world to improve it. It is our moral inheritance to support youth to stay the course of challenging times – and these times are the most challenging ever. We must provide the right encouragement to develop youth leadership. Some of our young people are born to move and shake the world – they are blessed with high energy, exceptional intelligence, extreme persistence, self-confidence and the ability to positively influence others. But not all youth are able to use their gifts in the face of adversity. These youth need a little help to start improving the world – they need skills for their toolboxes.

So, what can be done to start improving the world? What tools can we provide? We can support organizations such as Jubilee Consortium (and others) to provide youth programs that are alternatives to violence, violence that so many of our young people face today. Jubilee Consortium offers “Keep It Real,” a boxing program that prevents and reduces violence among its youth participants. This program fosters understanding and respect across ethnic, linguistic and gender lines as it develops youth leadership skills. The youth meet at various Jubilee sites on weekday afternoons and early evenings with activities that focus around boxing training and practice, with health and fitness education, anger management training, and leadership development woven into each session.

And in this way, with programs such as “Keep It Real,” our youth are part of the solution and not part of the problem. They are able to improve the world – their world – through the new currency of change. Do something today to be part of solution! Support Jubilee Consortium.

What might surprise many people, however, is that a major risk factor for obesity is the neighborhood where you live. How can this be? What does neighborhood have to do with lack of physical activity or poor nutrition? Isn’t lack of physical activity a matter of laziness and poor nutrition a matter of an undisciplined sweet tooth? No, not really. While individual choices have something do to with it, researchers are increasingly finding that environment is a primary factor in determining who becomes obese.

A recent study by Community Health Councils, Inc. found that there are only a little over 1 acre of park and recreation area per 1,000 population in South LA compared with over 70 acres per 1,000 population in West LA. And there are four times as many miles of bicycles lanes in West LA compared with South LA. Put this together with the fact that there are 8.5 liquor stores per square mile in South LA compared with slightly less than 2 liquor stores per square mile in West LA. And there are only 6 farmer’s markets in South LA compared with 16 in West LA.* These stark discrepancies in physical environment make it much more difficult for families in South LA, and similarly under-resourced urban neighborhoods, to make healthy food choices and get adequate physical activity.

The Jubilee Consortium is making a contribution to reversing these discrepancies, working with community members to promote health, offer alternatives to violence, develop leaders and train health advocates. The Jubilee Consortium currently offers 25 weekly exercise classes (aerobics, yoga, boxing and dance,) 4 healthy cooking classes and several health education workshops in Hollywood, Inglewood, Long Beach and South Los Angeles, with over 800 men, women and children attending these classes each week. For a small donation, families can come several times a week to exercise in an enjoyable, safe, convenient environment.

While the Jubilee Consortium provides additional physical activity opportunities on a direct scale, it also participates in the larger movement of changing the entire landscape of under-resourced communities like South LA. Not too far in the future, the Jubilee Consortium will unite with other like-minded community groups through a coalition convened through CHC. It will gather with local doctors, city planners, bike-lovers, basketball coaches and partner with community leaders to bring more bike paths, green space, and farmer’s markets to their neighborhoods so that we all have an equal chance to make healthy choices.

*Park, Annie, Nancy Watson, and Lark Galloway-Gilliam. South Los Angeles Health Equity Scorecard. Community Health Councils, Inc.: Los Angeles, CA. December 2008. Available at: http://www.chc-inc.org/userimages/South%20LA%20Scorecard.pdf

I am very excited about the nascent work that we are doing in the area of community organizing and advocacy training. The possibility of using the synergy created by people interested in improving health for creating opportunities for, and an environment of, health and wellness in their neighborhoods is powerful. Always we are told that the only way to truly care for your health is to learn enough to be an advocate for yourself. Having a group of people who have learned the power of this in their own life and become committed to insuring that this power is shared with their families and neighbors can be revolutionary. Communities as a source of health and healing, safety and empowerment – that is the vision of Jubilee Consortium that inspires my involvement with the Jubilee Consortium.

The possibility of anchoring this “community for health” in the long term comes from the work with churches. Churches as community institutions can provide the longevity and consistency of location which is so important to creating community. In changing and challenging urban communities, the unique gift that houses of worship provide is their long term commitment to the wholeness of the community. Jubilee Consortium has shown that churches and communities can successfully partner in transforming and improving the quality of life of our neighborhoods and cities.

The City of Long Beach was incorporated in 1888, and remained a sleepy little farming and resort town until after World War II, when thousands of service men and women settled here after being discharged from the Long Beach Naval Base. So many people from the mid-west settled in Long Beach that it became known as “Iowa-by-the-Sea”. The City has changed much in the last hundred and twenty years. It is now the 5th largest city in California and after the 2000 census, Long Beach was named the most racially diverse city in the United States (USA Today).

In the midst of all this history lies the downtown parish of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, established just 8 years after the City was incorporated. St. Luke’s has reflected the history of the City and has changed from a bastion of the City’s elite to a place of diversity and inclusion that is beginning to reflect the people in the neighborhoods that encompass our geographical parish.

In 2001 St. Luke’s joined with 3 other Episcopal parishes to establish the Jubilee Consortium, a non-profit corporation dedicated to improving the health and well-being of low-income people. In 2008, more than 500 of our neighbors visited the St. Luke’s facilities every month to participate in health-related programs of Jubilee Consortium (Aerobics, Salsa Dancing, Alternatives to Violence Youth Boxing). On many weeknights the contagious beat of high energy Latin music mingles with the dulcet tones of St. Luke’s Choir practice, and the shouts of pride and achievement emanate from the young people in the Alternatives to Violence Youth Boxing Program, contrasting with the noisy violence from the streets surrounding the St. Luke’s Youth Center. This year, you will also smell delicious aromas wafting from St. Luke’s kitchen as Jubilee collaborates with Operation Frontline to offer healthy cooking classes to low-income families, ensuring that the hungry are fed with “good” things and no child goes without food.

As the writing of this letter is being finished, the 44th President of the United States is being inaugurated. This certainly is a season of dreams and wonderful new possibilities. We invite you to join with us at Jubilee Consortium and dream of a Long Beach community filled with people of all kinds striving to make our young people, families and neighborhoods healthy, thriving and whole. Dream with us as we continue to grow and develop new and innovative programs. Get involved by volunteering in our programs. Support Jubilee financially, if you can, even though times are hard and money is tight. Your support has become even more vital during these challenging economic times. Partner with us at Jubilee Consortium so that we can continue to provide programs that help families become healthy today and build healthier communities for tomorrow.