Program begins at 4pm Sunday. Program concludes at lunch time Thursday.
If you are seeking financial assistance to participate in this program, please click on the link for our Financial Assistance Application form, below.
Peace and Social Action
Continuing Revolution 2022: Experiments in Spiritually Grounded Abolition
June 3 – 7, 2022: on-campus and online via Zoom
Young adult Friends and seekers (ages 18-35) will gather both online and at Pendle Hill to build community with others exploring abolition. Together we will experiment with seeds of alternative systems as we strive to live in integrity with our core values.
This year’s programming is guided by Mariame Kaba’s understanding of abolition as “a vision of a restructured society where we have everything that we need to live dignified lives.” Kaba notes that “abolition” is not a static or singular thing; the word is used by people of various political persuasions and imaginations, who “want to eliminate prisons, policing, and surveillance, and . . . want to create true safety, health, and well-being instead.”
For more information, to register, or apply for financial aid, visit:
Let’s Talk About Healing Justice
How do we keep our neighbors and communities safe? How does our current approach to crime, prosecution and punishment work for different Americans? Can we make it better? Lewis Webb, Jr., a graduate of Brooklyn Law School, has worked with the Brooklyn District Attorney’s office and the New York City Department of Corrections. Today, he focuses on mitigating paths to incarceration, lowering barriers for people leaving the carceral system, and improving police/community relations as Healing Justice Program Coordinator for the American Friends Service Committee. An engaging speaker, Lewis offers a hopeful vision of how we can create a justice system that heals communities, and protects and serves us all. Moorestown Friends Meeting’s Anti-Racism Committee welcomes you to join the discussion via Zoom on Thursday 19 May at 7:30pm; click here or call 646-558-8656 and enter meeting ID 873 3565 8140 to join the conversation.
The Quaker Conundrum: Controversies in the American Revolution and Early Republic
Kimberly McCarty, Washington Crossing Historic Park curator, will draw on correspondence between two men named Ennion Williams, both Pennsylvania Quakers, who found themselves in direct conflict with some of the most divisive issues of their faith: pacifism, slavery and the Hicksite separation. She will explore who these men were and how they confronted these controversies in their lives during America’s fight for independence and the early Republic. The elder Williams remained neutral and pacifist during the Revolution while the younger took up arms. During the war period, many Quakers focused on the abolition of slavery, pressuring Friends who continued to enslave those of African descent.
The picture provided is of the younger Ennion Williams, who served in the Continental Army until 1777. Portrait by the American painter, Charles Willson Peale. Picture in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. (No copyright)
This event is sponsored by Haddonfield Friends Meeting, as part of the Meeting’s participation in Haddonfield’s “Skirmish” on Saturday June 4th. The Meeting is celebrating its 300th anniversary this year.
Pre-registration Link: https://www.southjerseyquakers.org/quaker-conundrum/ Those who have pre-registered will receive the link a day before the event.
Let’s Talk About Black Quakers
Let’s Talk About Black Quakers
Join the Black Quaker Project for a bi-weekly, free, online film festival, and Let’s Talk! Watch any or all of the five films screening on alternate Saturdays from 12 February through 9 April, or just bring your thoughts about Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge, Howard Thurman, Mahala Ashley Dickerson, Bayard Rustin and/or Paul Robeson to an informal discussion of what we’ve learned on Thursday 21 April at 7:30pm. All are welcome; click here or call 646-558-8656 and enter meeting ID 873 3565 8140 to join the conversation.
Apply for a Travel & Witness Grant at the March 1 Deadline
The Travel and Witness Granting Group (TWGG) provides grants to support active service and witness by individuals following leadings of the Spirit.
The group has made fewer grants since March 2020 as a result of the pandemic’s impact on travel plans and gatherings. This decrease means that the group has more funds available for future grants, and therefore welcomes applications for creative ideas that involve connecting with other communities through travel or witness. [Read more…] about Apply for a Travel & Witness Grant at the March 1 Deadline
PYM Grants for Family Planning
PYM’s Natalie Clifford Barney Fund provides grants to organizations providing family planning, specifically planned parenthood and birth control. Over the course of winter 2021, members of the Quaker Buildings & Programs granting group met several times to discern an impactful use of the funds today.
Broadcast of Must See Documentary Dawnland 11-5-18 @ 10 PBS
Greetings from the Indian Committee
We want you to be aware of on MONDAY NOVEMBER 5th 10PM PBS will broadcast DAWNLAND
Our friends Wayne Newell and Denise Altvater (AFSC WABANAKI) are among those featured. See link below.
Thanks to Elizabeth Koopman
About the Film
They were forced to assimilate into white society: children ripped away from their families, depriving them of their culture and erasing their identities. Can reconciliation help heal the scars from childhoods lost? Dawnland is the untold story of Indigenous child removal in the US through the nation’s first-ever government-endorsed truth and reconciliation commission, which investigated the devastating impact of Maine’s child welfare practices on the Wabanaki people.
PS Learn the Lenape Language online! http://talk-lenape.org/getting-started
Green Street Meeting provides school supplies to children at EMIR Healing Center
Green Street Meeting’s EMIR Ministry Support Group says a heartfelt “Thank you!” to everyone at Green Street, the meetings in Philadelphia Quarter, and beyond who supported our school supplies drive in summer 2018.
The drive benefited 103 children whose families had lost a loved one to homicide, and who received services and support from the EMIR Healing Center. The center was founded by our member Victoria Greene, and named in memory of her son Emir, who was murdered. The name also makes the statement “Every Murder Is Real.” No matter who the victim was, or how much or little attention the crime received, that person’s loved ones are mourning their loss for years afterwards.
Still going strong in Philadelphia’s Germantown neighborhood, after 19 years, the EMIR Healing Center continues to help families survive and eventually heal from the pain of losing a loved one to homicide.
Friends from Green Street Meeting formed the EMIR Ministry Support Group in early 2018. We use the Quaker Social Change Ministry model, developed by American Friends Service Committee (especially Green Street member Lucy Duncan). In this model, a group of Quakers partner with a local organization led by people most impacted by a particular issue. The Quaker group follows their lead in deciding what to work on. The model also makes time for spiritual sharing, connection, and reflection, leading to deeper relationship, followership, and grounding of action.
Victoria asked our group at Green Street to organize a drive to provide backpacks with school supplies to the children EMIR serves. When a parent is mourning a murdered family member, whether it be a brother, sister, parent, or child, it can be very hard for them to keep things together for the rest of the family. They may be depressed and overwhelmed, and not as able to track things like school start dates and supply lists. They may lose income or even their job.
Our ministry support group got organized in the spring, asked the Meeting to take us under their care, and then spent the summer campaigning and publicizing the drive. An online buying service was set up so supporters could buy things and have them shipped directly to EMIR. (See this PYM news story from May 2018.)
With a couple of weeks to go before our deadline, we had 51 backpacks, toward our goal of 85. And then we found out there were 103 kids served by EMIR! With God’s abundance, people came through. We had enough to serve every child. We raised about $1,750 in donations, which enabled us to fill gaps in what was bought online or contributed in person.
The week before school started, we gave away 103 backpacks with school supplies in them at the EMIR office. The little children in particular were overjoyed. There were even a few backpacks left over, in case other children have a need.
Victoria said it was a great success and thanked our support group for doing the project and everyone who contributed supplies, funds, or time.
To everyone who purchased supplies online, dropped off supplies directly at the Meetinghouse or at the EMIR office, or made a donation, THANK YOU!
– Chris Mohr, support group convenor
Photo: Victoria Greene, member of Green Street Meeting and founder of EMIR Healing Center, with a box used to collect school supplies. Learn more about EMIR at emirphilly.org.
Philadelphia Yearly Meeting Friends support arrestees at Demand the Ban action outside Senator Toomey’s office in Philadelphia
On May 16, 2018, Fran Sheldon (Providence Meeting) and Paul Sheldon (Lansdowne Meeting) participated in a Demand the Ban action in Philadelphia to demand that Senator Toomey co-sponsor Senate Bill 2095 that bans the sale of assault weapons. [Read more…] about Philadelphia Yearly Meeting Friends support arrestees at Demand the Ban action outside Senator Toomey’s office in Philadelphia