Interfaith Relations

Interfaith Works maintains a tradition of programming that bring our diverse community together, celebrating and honoring religious and spiritual diversity in Thurston County.
Interfaith Relations programming seeks to promote and support social justice and peace through deepening interfaith understanding and cooperation.
Interfaith Celebration of Gratitude
In 2021, Interfaith Works offered our annual, autumnal event under the name "Resetting Our Sacred Table."  This event featured contributions from the Squaxin Island tribe as well from the member faith communities of our coalition.

We welcomed an emerging awareness of indigenous justice into this year's event and sought to expand the popularized narrative of Thanksgiving to include the indigenous perspective.

We look forward to the ongoing evolution and development of this annual event and are grateful for all of the contributors who helped to form and create this wonderful community moment of gratitude.
Interfaith Summer Day Camp
Our summer day camp allows youth to explore a variety of spiritual/religious traditions. Look for our summer camps to return 2021!
The Interfaith Works Clergy Breakfast
These quarterly breakfasts serve as a way for clergy and religious/spiritual leaders to come together, share a meal, and discuss their common calling. 

Sacred Service

Hundreds of volunteers from our Member Faith Communities and beyond work throughout the year to support our programs, pursue shared concerns, build alliances, and make our community a better place.

Over the past year, dedicated volunteers have organized and supported faith community participation to help raise funds and provide meals and other support at the IW Overnight Shelter.
Volunteer leaders organized the annual All Souls service in October to remember those who died in the past year whose remains were never claimed, and conduct Moments of Blessing as faith-based responses to incidents of homicide in our community.
Moment of Blessing
​Moment of Blessing is a faith-based response to cases of homicide, to reclaim the place of violence as a place of life and peace. Through Moment of Blessing gatherings we strive to bring support to the victim’s family and friends, and the neighboring community.

Faith Community Leaders and lay persons gather as near as possible to the site of a homicide to conduct an interfaith service of comfort and healing.

    Moment of Blessings

    I want to be informed of future Moment of Blessing gatherings.
All Souls' Day Service and Litany of the Unclaimed Dead
This is a commemorative observance developed in cooperation with the Thurston County Coroner, who is legally responsible as caretaker of the remains of unclaimed deceased persons.  In some cases, the Coroner is simply unable to identify any relatives; in other cases, family members are unable or unwilling to take responsibility. Once a year, we hold our All Souls service to honor, and acknowledge the passing of these people, though we do not know them.  This event also honors those persons who died in Thurston County in the last year while experiencing homelessness and persons who died by suicide.
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Our All Souls service is held on the Sunday of, or before, the All Souls' and All Saints' Days observed by many western Christian traditions and Día de Muertos (Day of the Dead), a holiday celebrated throughout Mexico and beyond.

Social Justice

Interfaith Works supports projects that advance social justice in our community. We work with clergy leaders to promote the Olympia Compassion Charter, which calls on our community to recognize the inherent worth and dignity of all persons.
We also function as a hub for information on local social justice issues.
Immigration and Refugee Support
Immigration and Refugee Support
 
​Interfaith Works is involved in many actions to support immigrants and refugees.
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We work closely with The South Sound Faith Network for Immigration and Refugee Support which consists of representatives from these area faith/spiritual communities:

  • Community for Interfaith Celebration
  • Fellowship for Reconciliation
  • First Christian Church
  • First United Methodist Church of Olympia
  • Holy Wisdom Inclusive Catholic Community, individual signers
  • The Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd
  • Olympia Unitarian Universalist Congregation                               
  • Religious Society of Friends
  • St John’s Episcopal Church
  • St. Benedict’s Episcopal Church
  • South Sound Buddhist Peace Fellowship
  • Temple Beth Hatfiloh
  • The United Churches of Olympia
  • Unity of Olympia

These congregations came together to support Temple Beth Hatfiloh in providing sanctuary to a victim of domestic violence and her child who fled their native Guatemala only to have their petition for asylum denied. Rather than face possible separation and certain deportation, they chose to enter sanctuary while a legal remedy was sought.

Although they are no longer housed in the synagogue, they continue to need sanctuary in the form of financial and emotional support. Their legal future and employment opportunities remain uncertain.

If you are able to help support this family, please click on “Donate to the Sanctuary Fund” or mail your contribution to Interfaith Works and designate that it is for the “Sanctuary Fund” via the memo line or with a note, to Interfaith Works, P.O. Box 1221, Olympia, WA 98507.
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Learning Right Relations
Learning Right Relations (LRR) is a series of classes, auxiliary meetings and visits to Tribal sites aimed at addressing the historic marginalization and ongoing inequities of our Coast Salish neighbors.

The project was co-founded in the autumn of 2015 by Douglas Mackey and Pat Rasmussen–each with more than 30 years of collaborative work with several Tribes–as classes offered by the Adult Ed Committee of the Olympia Unitarian Universalist Congregation. Learning Right Relations has become an interfaith action group that meets monthly and is involved year-round in activities.
MISSION
We walk a path of learning and living to address the historic marginalization and ongoing inequities experienced by our Coast Salish neighbors; and we share the responsibility to care for this place, their homelands, where we mutually abide.
Care Fund
In Washington State, a driver’s license can be suspended indefinitely for failure to pay certain traffic fines. The suspension can remain until all fines and associated collection fees and interest are collected; this is designated as Driving With License Suspended-Third Degree (DWLS3).

Many who cannot afford to pay the fines are compelled to keep driving to earn a living. If they are stopped by law enforcement, they will be charged with DWLS3. This policy disproportionately affects poor people and contributes significantly to the cycle of poverty, unemployment and incarceration.

The Community-Assisted Resources for Equity, or CARE Fund, is a volunteer, community-based project to provide assistance to those in Thurston County who want to pay small fines to get their drivers’ licenses reinstated. The Fund assists people recommended by public interest attorneys. Assistance payments on behalf of clients are made directly to agencies and courts, not to the individual.
The CARE Fund was closed in December of 2021. We are so grateful to the good work this fund did and the many individuals who donated their resources and time to make it possible. 

Homeless Services
Interfaith Works continues our 29-year history of sheltering homeless adults in Thurston County, with improved program design to better serve the most vulnerable adults living on our streets.

Interfaith Works Shelter

The smallest act of kindness is worth more than the grandest intention.

OSCAR WILDE