"CRAFTS at Northern Arizona University, developed in partnership with Northern Arizona Interfaith Council ...trains hundreds of students in skills of cross-partisan broad-based community organizing that make their education far more relevant..."

At an assembly with 504 Austin Interfaith delegates, candidates for City Council and Mayor committed to raising electricity rates no higher than 20% for congregations and to broaden assistance to people with limited incomes.

Candidates were also challenged about publicly funded incentives, as Austin has been the center of high-profile incentive deals in recent years. Austin Interfaith got all candidates to commit to setting a wage standard for permanent (and construction) workers ranging between $11-20 per hour. Candidates also agreed to a community study and dialogue with Austin Interfaith to determine what constitutes a living wage in Austin.

Triumph of a proposition for funding public transit follows a 15-month constituency building campaign that brought together diverse institutions from across the city. Local leaders focused on neighborhood issues and organized a 1,000 person assembly to launch a month long effort to Get Out the Vote.

In photo, Diana Dorroh and Deborah Quinn of Together Baton Rouge team up Saturday morning to walk Baton Rouge neighborhoods and encourage voters to cast their ballot in support of CATS.

"Project IOWA is a faith-based initiative in Des Moines that provides worker training....'The workers know this is their best chance at changing their lives, and they're giving it their all,' said Fugenschuh..."

Des Moines Area Community College welding student Jason Gregory, right, works with instructor Jeff Pratt. Gregory is part of Project Iowa, which was founded by AMOS and helps workers get the training they need to find jobs.

"Casa San Juan was started in 2002 by the Diocese of Tucson, at the request of leaders and members of the St. John the Evangelical Catholic Church.

One of its founders, the Rev. Raul Trevizo, said the center was started in a joint effort with the Pima County Interfaith Council, an organization of churches in the area..."

"On Saturday, A Mid-Iowa Organizing Strategy (AMOS)...unveiled a preliminary design for the park at the Subsect Skate Shop in Des Moines' East Village.

The facility will feature all three of the main structures skateboarders prefer: a deep vertical bowl, a "flow section" that recreates the experience of downhill skateboarding, and a plaza with stairs and rails, Rogers said..."

"Peter Stemp, ministry outreach coordinator at the Diocese of Monterey, is helping collect signatures for COPA's Stand Up and Take Charge Campaign, launched March 12. They're 200 signatures toward an October goal of 30,000, in support of a broad agenda: the rights to affordable housing, healthcare, safety, economic opportunity and education for citizens and immigrants alike."

Coalition of Faith and Community Groups Seeks 30,000 Signatures for Political Agenda, Monterey County Weekly

"Linda Clark, a VOICE leader who attends St. Charles Borromeo, said the issues VOICE will bring to the forefront are those that the poor, immigrants and other marginalized community members have identified as important to them.

"Existing programs that save Tucson Electric Power customers money on their energy bills will be cut significantly. That's the bottom line reached at the end of the March 16 Arizona Corporation Commission public hearing....

"A wheelchair-using retired U.S. Air Force captain who travels to the hospital by bus three times a week.

A New York transplant who hoped to get to her job without having to purchase a vehicle.