Two members of our staff and seven volunteers spread the word about our work to 40,000 people at the Religious Education Congress, the nation’s largest annual gathering of Roman Catholics, from March 22-24.
Over the course of three days, we connected with Catholics from as far away as Nigeria who wanted to know more about our work with Catholic churches in the greater Los Angeles area. More than 100 people expressed interest in attending one of our new construction sites, sponsoring a build day with their congregations, helping us to find hardworking but needy partner homebuyers, or simply learning more about Habitat for Humanity.
We also talked with other California Habitat affiliates about our Catholic Coalition, a federation of Southern California Catholic churches that work together to fundraise and build a new Habitat home every year.
“A lot of people didn’t know we had a Catholic Coalition,” said Kenna Ledbetter, Manager of Faith Relations. “They were excited to know they could participate in our work so easily. Other people had never heard of Habitat, so the conference was a real opportunity to share the accomplishments of our Catholic churches.”
Kenna was joined at the Congress by Chris Untiet, Director of Faith Relations, and by seven Catholic volunteers: Tom Miller, Karen Krishfield, Lorilynn Failor (L-R in photo above) as well as Chris Gerety, Maxim Ofina, Carmen Kallberg and Jesse Coronado.
“It’s so inspiring to have people come to our booth at the convention center and speak from the heart about what we’ve been doing,” Kenna said. “Having them there made it feel less like a sales pitch and more like an invitation to join our work.”
Chris said he looks forward to the conference every year. “It’s always a great opportunity to find ways of taking social justice to another level and to re-energize your faith.”