Please mark your calendar, bring your family, your friends, and your faith community to the 3rd Interfaith Service Day on the New Haven Green.
Sign up here for our newsletter to follow the 2023 details as they unfold. Let's do it again! We look forward to seeing you there!
On Sunday August 7th 2022 in New Haven CT, Interfaith Service Day brought a diversity of faith and community groups together in fellowship and goodwill. Through this event we collectively sent the message that we are one people, that we have nothing to fear from our differences, and that in fact, our differences make us a strong, vibrant, and dynamic community. We can disagree on doctrine and theology while respecting, learning, and enjoying one another. To each and every one who joined together for this day of community service and celebration of our like-mindedness, thank you! Amen!
In the heat of the day on the Green, a line forms at the anvil where volunteers test their strength at the hammer. They pound glowing red steel, turning guns into garden tools, they pound. The hammer strikes and rings over the Green, “ping, ping, ping....” turning war into peace.
Half of you, bless you all, tired from the hot work, returned home after lunch. Half of you stayed for reflections from the Jewish, Christian, Muslim, and Baha’i traditions. Each separate voice connected to the whole. Thank you Rabbi Joshua Pernick from the Jewish Federation, Reverend Luke DeVolder from Trinity Episcopal Church on the Green, Imam Bilal Ansari, and Rachael Gonzales Ryan and your team.
A wind, wild and hot, grew and blew down the music stands, but the syncopations of the Afro-Semitic Experience kept on keeping on, bass plucking, saxophone humming, trumpet popping, the groove lifting our hearts as we painted the last corners of the billboard grateful for this time of joy as we served, prayed, and healed each other.
"Interfaith Service Day returns to New Haven 8/7/22"
Interfaith Service Day came in partnership with Jerusalem Peacebuilders and was made possible by a generous donation from the Episcopal Church in Connecticut and with the participation of 17 faith community partners:
Trinity Church on the Green New Haven
The Jewish Federation of Greater New Haven
Muslim Coalition of Connecticut
Christ Church New Haven
Regional Baha’i Council of the Northeastern States
St. Andrew's Episcopal Church Madison
Woodmont UCC Milford
Congregation Mishkan Israel Hamden
St. Peter's Episcopal Church Milford
Congregation Beth-El Keser Israel New Haven
St. Matthew's Episcopal Church Wilton
Dixwell Avenue Congregational UCC New Haven
Episcopal Church at Yale
First Presbyterian Church of New Haven
First United Church of Christ Milford
OASIS Multi Church Youth Ministry
St. Mark’s Episcopal Church New Canaan
The 1st Interfaith Service Day on August 8th in New Haven was a wonderful success. Twenty-two Israeli and Palestinian youth plus 125 local volunteers of all ages brought our size to over 150 in attendance. We completed seven community work projects. We enjoyed Fire Engine Pizza Truck! Mayor Toni Harp inspired us with her gratitude for our work. Thank you WPKN Radio Something, Channel 8, Channel 12 news, and the New Haven Independent. Thank you everyone who volunteered and supported our efforts. Truly, “We Are All In This Together.”