SNAPSHOT
ACTS OF SERVICE The rise and fall of faith-based activism in New Haven.
First thing in the morning, I braced myself for another rejection. But by some miracle, today was different than the last ten days; today, an operator finally picked up. After a week and a half of making groggy 8:00 a.m. phone calls, staring at “no appointments available” messages, and listening to the locust drone of busy signals across various vaccine hotlines, I was starting to think I’d never find an appointment for Sam, a jovial older man from Guilford. Sam was my first client for the Vaccine Buddies volunteer program, a joint initiative between the Connecticut Agency on Aging and Interfaith Volunteer Care Givers (IVCG) to help seniors secure COVID-19 vaccines. Vaccines became generally available to New Haven residents 16
75 and older on January 18, 2021. Just four days later, I received a Vaccine Buddies invitation email from Jane Ferrall, the executive director of IVCG. At the end of the email, she urged: “Right now is a historic time for us to rally round and help our seniors when and where they need it most… and if not now, when?” I wouldn’t meet Jane until months later, but her passion for service resonated through her writing. By the end of March, Vaccine Buddies and other IVCG volunteers had made over 150 appointments for seniors aged 65+ and provided medical transportation to over 750 clients, highlighting not only the power of volunteerism but also that of faithbased organizations to provide vital social services in times of need. Though it is no longer an
explicit faith-based organization, IVCG has its roots in religious practice that still informs many of its volunteers and staff, including Jane herself. The “Interfaith” in IVCG’s moniker pays homage to IVCG’s parent organization, Interfaith Cooperative Ministries (ICM), through which many present-day social service organizations in New Haven received their initial seed funding and institutional backing. Columbus House, Downtown Evening Soup Kitchen, and the Greater New Haven Community Loan Fund, which has funded development for over 2,500 housing units in New Haven, are just a few of such organizations. Despite its far reach, I had never heard of ICM until Jane mentioned it to me. First established in 1970 as “Downtown T HE NEW JOUR NAL
DESIGN BY ADA GRIFFIN
BY LILLIAN YUAN
