Six months after a fall assembly in which hundreds of AMOS leaders pressured state legislators to restore mental health funding, leaders persisted in their quest -- writing an OpEd and testifying before the legislature.

"This isn't just a tax issue. This is an issue of life or death," testified Travis Stanley, pastor of Norwalk Christian Church and leader with AMOS. AMOS criticizes a state law capping the amount counties can collect for such services to the amount they collected in 1996, regardless of whether the county grew since then. "Keeping the cap at 1996 levels — when I was 16 — has killed people. People have lost their lives because of this," he said.

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After holding 200 house meetings involving thousands of Ankeny residents, hundreds of AMOS leaders told those stories to candidates for state legislative office and secured commitments from most of them on several mental health-related items. Most candidates for Iowa House District 37 and House District 38 public committed to a) introduce legislation for the creation and funding of a loan-forgiveness program for mental care providers, b) co-sponsor legislation to grant counties the local authority to adjust taxes for mental health services and c) participating in a mental health caucus in the upcoming session.

Clergy from a cross-section of denominations told powerful stories about the need for such services in their communities. Leaders explained the correlation between financial insecurity and mental illness.

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The media ritual of the exit interview in which a journalist sits down for reflective conversation with a public figure leaving office or moving away shouldn't be confined only to elected officials or CEOs.

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During a house meeting campaign in member congregations, AMOS organizers encountered countless workers, many of them Black, struggling to find decent work. In response, members of AMOS created Project IOWA to simultaneously fix the "skills gap" in the labor market and train people into living wage work. The Des Moines Register reports that since its inception, Project IOWA has graduated 205 people, 40% of which are Black, and making on average $14 / hour.

The Struggle to Help People Find Better Jobs, Des Moines Register

Over the last year, as part of a multi-year strategy to address the racial bias of the criminal justice system, leaders of AMOS (A Mid-Iowa Organizing Strategy) have recorded the stories of black Iowans racially profiled by store clerks, security guards, police and others. Says one mother of a teenage son, "I never, ever want to be that mom on TV who is crying … because something has happened to my son."

Black Iowans Fell Profiled by Police, Des Moines Register

On a February afternoon , 77 leaders and potential leaders of AMOS assembled to kick off a year of reorganizing and renewal for the organization. Sponsored by the AMOS Institute of Public Life, the training focused on preparing all participants to conduct relational meetings and then split into three tracks: building research teams, building congregational / institutional leadership teams and looking at the big picture (i.e. world as it is vs. the world as it should be).

Building on a public conversation about juvenile criminal justice, initiated last year by AMOS, almost 800 people gathered at Iowa Events Center to hear the latest findings on the developing brains of children and youth.

Dr. Dipesh Navsaria explained that when young children are routinely stressed, such as in cases of abuse, "their systems bombard them with 'flight or flight' hormones", the overproduction of which can stunt their ability to control their emotions or even learn.

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At a town hall meeting held in Ames, Iowa, Congressman Steve King was confronted by AMOS leaders unhappy with his recent votes on Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals and treatment of unaccompanied minors from Central America.

Shari Reilly appealed to the Catholic faith shared with King when she asked him to take a more "humanitarian approach" to the unaccompanied children arriving from Mexico and Central America. On behalf of AMOS she invited the Congressman to a public assembly to be held in September at St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Church.

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