People of Faith for Justice Gina Whitaker & Jason Sisk-Provencio

Our guests today are three friends from the Central Coast of CA who share a mission: to make the Earth a better place for all their descendants. Earth Day, Earth Month, Earth Year–why not an Earth Eternity? We know that nothing lasts for eternity; one day, scientists say, our Sun will fail us and leave everything in darkness and cold, long after life on planet Earth no longer exists. But what about now? How do we celebrate our Earth’s longevity, long after a day in April, a month in Spring or a year from now? Spend the next hour with our guests June Cochran, Kelly Fisher and Grace Gautereaux while we vision together an Earth Eternity healed of the many mistakes we made while generations embraced the notion that Earth’s resources were boundless, that our greed was “good” and that our abuses would never be noticed.



RELEVANT LINKS
PFJ Unitarian Universalists San Luis Obispo United Church of Christ (Congregational) of San Luis Obispo College Corps Fellowship - Cal Poly (Get $10K for your educational expenses in exchange for a 450 hour internship with a local non-profit working for the environment. Apply now! June 30 deadline.) SLO Climate Coalition Resilient SLO SLO Climate Coalition Micro Community Collaborative Civic Spark-Americorps City of San Luis Obispo (SLO) Sustainability Dept Surfriders Central Coast Red Cross Central CA Silent Spring by Rachel Carson ECOSLO GridAlternatives U.N. Sustainable Development Goals Tri County Regional Energy Network (3C-REN) Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer BlocPower  
MORE ABOUT OUR GUESTS
June Cochran, a native Californian, earned her undergraduate degree at U.C. Berkeley, where she learned how to protest injustices, and her Master’s degree at Occidental in Urban Studies. June then became a reporter, a high school teacher, a college instructor and an Instructional Specialist, training teachers for Stockton Unified School District. Possessing a deep desire to educate herself and others on resiliency and equity issues, she started and advised a high school club titled E.N.U.F. (Earth Needs Us Fast); organized a Green Shalom action group at a synagogue; produced a number of informative video programs for the media; and became an integral contributor in key groups engaged in a positive movement toward a solution-based future. 
As coordinator of the San Luis Obispo Climate Coalition, her mission is to increase awareness of the advantages of decarbonization in order to strengthen our energy profile and our local economy, give residents the power to put their talents to work, and prepare our isolated area for unexpected events. In 2018, June received the SLO Climate Coalition’s “Climate Champion Award,” of which she is quite proud. In all of June’s work for change, her emphasis is on raising public awareness, organizing educational events, and networking. She volunteers as a national responder for the American Red Cross and has helped install solar through Grid Alternatives, including two all-female installations. 
June and her husband, Fred Fink, live in Shell Beach, CA. They do this work primarily for her daughter and son, who both work in the field of public health; a daughter-in-law who is a high school counselor; a son-in-law who is an engineer; and four grandsons—two in California and two in New York—and for all their descendants, as well as for all future individuals and families. June is committed to creating a vibrant, just, and sustainable world for ALL people for generations to come.
Kelly Fisher serves as the program director and co-founder of the San Luis Obispo Climate Coalition’s Micro-Community Collaborative. Their Resilient SLO Challenge program is designed to promote equity, resilience, and climate protection regionally. Kelly also serves as a highly qualified expert with the United States Army Senior Education Program, where she assisted in the development of the Women, Peace and Security curriculum. Kelly serves as a De

Our guests today are three women from the Central Coast of CA who share their Ukrainian heritage and the pain, fear and anger they are experiencing during the current, ongoing Russian invasion of their country of origin. Our interview was remarkable. You will hear strong emotions expressed; some of the stories and concerns will be troubling. There is death, famine, war and struggle in Ukraine’s history. But there is beauty, art, joy, resolve and strength as well.
 
RELEVANT LINKS
PFJ Unitarian Universalists San Luis Obispo United Church of Christ (Congregational) of San Luis Obispo Irina Malkmus (Permanent Makeup Artistry site) Irina Malkmus (Fine Art site) Irina Malkmus (Santa Ynez Valley Star) Modern-Day Xenophobia (by Oksana Yakushko) Scientific Pollyannaism (by Oksana Yakushko)  American Psychological Association “Living with the War” (3/4/22 Santa Barbara Independent by Oksana Yakushko) “Stand With Ukraine” (2/25/22 Santa Barbara Independent by Oksana Yakushko) “Russian War Against Ukraine Gets Worse”  (3/13/22 by Oksana Yakushko) “Terror in Ukraine” (2/27/22 Santa Barbara Independent by Oksana Yakushko) The Horror of War… (4/4/22 Santa Barbara Independent by Oksana Yakushko) The Ukraine Crisis… (CNN: Fareed Zakaria) First Ukrainian Evangelical Baptist Church of Santa Barbara Ukrainian National Anthem (YouTube-2/28/22 NY Met Orchestra and Chorus) “Prayer for Ukraine” (YouTube-2-27-22 Ukrainian Chorus Dumka New York) https://novaukraine.org/ (Reliable org for Donations) https://gofund.me/3b6fc1b8 (Irina’s family fundraiser) https://www.facebook.com/irina.malkmus.7 (Irina’s FB page) MIRAMA09@gmail.com (Irina’s PayPal-how she sends $$ to Ukraine) https://www.ukrweekly.com/uwwp/the-price-of-truth-the-story-behind-agnieszka-hollands-mr-jones/ (About the Film, Mr. Jones, available on Hulu) https://education.holodomor.ca/about-the-holodomor/ (Story of the Holodomor) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=El5aPt91jeo (Stop the War in Ukraine Rally)  
MORE ABOUT OUR GUESTS
Annie Doryk-Cappelli was born in Canada and raised in both Canada and South Florida. She moved to California in the early 1990's and continued her pursuit of painting, illustration, figurative sculpture and documentary filmmaking after attending art school in Toronto, Canada.  You can see her work at https://www.anniecappelli.com/
Annie has deep Ukrainian heritage. Both her parents spoke and wrote Ukrainian, and her father played accordion in a Ukrainian polka band. The family spoke Ukrainian at home until her parents moved permanently to the USA. Upon returning to Canada for college, Annie lived in a Ukrainian dormitory that proved to be quite fun. With the support of a Ukrainian community she met in San Diego, Annie continued her art education studying editing, graphic design and animation.
Wherever Annie went, she took both her culture and her passion for art with her; after traveling extensively in North America, she eventually settled on the Central Coast of California. Since it was difficult to find Ukrainian friends here, Annie put in additional effort at home to practice Ukrainian customs and prepare traditional foods, teaching her son about their heritage. In addition to practicing her wide range of artistic talents, Annie began studying marine algae in 2010 and became a commercial kelp harvester in 2012. She now sells a line of commercial seaweed products. 
Since the war began in Ukraine, Annie has reached out to new friends she has met in the Ukrainian community in Santa Barbara. She continues to utilize her artistic skills to create posters, banners and items to sell at fundraising efforts in the Santa Barbara and Pismo Beach areas. Annie’s hope and inspiration are revived by her new Ukrainian friends with their poignant stories, resilience, humor and grace as they comfort one another at this difficult time.
 
Oksana Yakushko grew up in Kyiv, Ukraine, and immigrated to the U.S. in the 1990s.

Our guests this month are Jamie Woolf and Ila Moncrief, both active volunteers with the GALA Pride and Diversity Center in San Luis Obispo and, in Ila’s case, the LGBTQ+ Center for Campus Life at Cal Poly. Ila serves on the GALA Board, and Jamie leads Tranz Central Coast, an organization supporting transgender and other gender-diverse individuals in SLO County. Through their work with the GALA Pride and Diversity Center of San Luis Obispo, Tranz Central Coast, and the LGBTQ+ Center for Campus Life at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo, they have been leaders in the struggle for LGBTQ+ equity and inclusion. Today, they share their insights, concerns and victories.
We welcome Ila and Jamie to our microphone this month.
 
RELEVANT LINKS
PFJ GALA Pride and Diversity Center - San Luis Obispo LGBTQ+ Center for Campus Life - Cal Poly Unitarian Universalists San Luis Obispo United Church of Christ (Congregational) of San Luis Obispo Combating Anti-Trans Legislation (Webinar on Vimeo)  Anti-transgender legislation- Texas and other states Here’s All the Anti-Trans Legislation That Moved Forward This Week  Transgender Training Institute SLO Pride Skippers’ Brew Coffee Shop, San Luis Obispo (local discounts for monthly supporters of GALA) SLO Provisions, San Luis Obispo (local discounts) SLO Botanical Garden, San Luis Obispo (local discounts) SLO Public House (local discounts) Central Coast Comedy Theater (local discounts)  
MORE ABOUT OUR GUESTS
Ila Moncrief
Ila is a queer, non-binary Cal Poly student with LGBTQ+ Center for Campus Life. Since fall 2020, they have been working with their campus center in collaboration with GALA. Chairing the 2021 Central Coast Pride committee was the highlight of their experience with GALA. Since then, community engagement, education, and visibility have become the focus of their work. They incorporate LGBTQ+ issues into their studies as a Political Science major and minor in City and Regional Planning at Cal Poly. Their enduring love for cities inspires their advocacy for equitable access to resources and urban space.
Jamie Woolf
Jamie Woolf is a retired journalist who spent 32 years writing for the Salt Lake Tribune in Salt Lake City, Utah. Most of that time she covered environmental issues. She received a Knight International Press Fellowship in 1998 and spent six months teaching journalism in Ecuador. She was also a visiting lecturer at Princeton University in 2001.
Since moving to SLO some 13 years ago, she has been president of the Unitarian Universalists SLO Board of Trustees, chair of SLO City’s Bicycle Advisory Committee, a state park docent at the Pismo Beach Monarch Grove, and a volunteer teacher of English as a second language. She is currently chair of Tranz Central Coast, a group that supports transgender and other gender-diverse people in San Luis Obispo County.
She has a son who lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan.



SUPPORT PFJ
We greatly appreciate your financial support so that we can continue to educate, advocate and pray for the things that matter to our organization. Please consider donating through PayPal.
People of Faith for Justice is a 501(c)(3) non-profit  organization.



CREDITS
The People of Faith for Justice Podcast is produced and edited by Jeff Manildi
Music for the People of Faith for Justice Podcast is provided by Andrew Gorman

Our guests this month are Noha Kolkailah and Morgan Boyd, both volunteers with a brand new non-profit called SLO4HOME. Morgan and Noha are two of at least 100 other volunteers who have begun a long journey to create an organization and a plan to welcome and help settle several Afghan families in SLO County communities. The United States government made a promise to Afghan men and women who assisted us during our 20 year mission in their country. Now it’s time to honor our word, and through their involvement with SLO4HOME, Noha and Morgan are helping us do that very thing. We hope our listeners will be excited to learn about SLO4HOME, and perhaps be motivated to lend a hand in this community-wide journey to welcome our new neighbors.



RELEVANT LINKS
PFJ Islamophobia SLO Diversity Coalition (Website and Episode 1/25/22 recording) Mosque of Nasreen (San Luis Obispo) Church World Service (Faith Based Resettlement Agency) SLO4HOME Cal Poly Farmer Experiential Education and Development Training Program (FEED)


MORE ABOUT OUR GUESTS
Noha Kolkailah
Noha Kolkailah was born in Cairo Egypt and raised in California. After starting a summer school for children in Hawaii at age sixteen, her love for children moved her in the direction of becoming a teacher. She attained a bachelor’s in Biochemistry, her teaching credentials, and a master’s in Educational Leadership and Administration from Cal Poly State University.
In 2015, Noha took on the role of Vice Principal at Mission College Prep Catholic High School and founded the Peace Academy of the Sciences and Arts shortly thereafter. With a group of diverse thinkers and a common language of core human values, the Peace Academy fosters an enriching culture and climate for children with a focus on self-awareness, global citizenship, social justice, and environmental stewardship. 
On behalf of SLO’s Muslim community, Noha was awarded the David Conn Diversity Advancement award by the Jewish Community Center. She received this award for leading the efforts put forth towards intercultural exchange with the 2017 “Meet Your Muslim Neighbor” event attended by 800 people. Noha also served on SLO Coastal School District’s Common Ground Task Force. In 2020, Noha was one of the six women honored by Congressman Salud Carbajal as a Congressional Woman of the Year after which she took part in the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Task Force to  develop a set of recommendations for a more welcoming SLO community. Currently, Noha works for Santa Maria Bonita’s 21 schools as a Culture and Climate Coordinator, a new and innovative capacity to fulfill for the district.
Morgan Q. Boyd
Mr. Boyd is a native of the Central Coast where he grew up working on his family’s sustainable farm in Arroyo Grande. He is a Cal Poly graduate with a master’s degree in Public Policy where his primary research focused on the causality of Veteran unemployment and underemployment. During his tenure at Cal Poly as a Program Manager and Instructor, Mr. Boyd was responsible for the development of Cal Poly’s Farmer Experiential Education and Development Training Program (FEED), which focused on training Veterans in sustainable agricultural practices. 
During his 12-year military career he obtained the rank of Captain, served as Platoon Leader, Company Commander and Regimental Assistant Intelligence Officer. He was deployed to both Iraq and Afghanistan serving as a Cavalry Trooper conducting reconnaissance operations. 
Mr. Boyd has served in the County’s Health Agency as the Administrative Services Officer of the County Jail Medical Clinic and most recently as a Program Manager for Adult Drug Court program and as a unit supervisor Drug & Alcohol Services’ drug testing program. Mr. Boyd currently serves his community as the San Luis Obispo County Veteran Services Officer and has been involved in the evacuation of Afghan refugees since the fall of Afghanistan last summer.



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Our guest this month, Dr. Stephen Lloyd-Moffett, is a Professor of Comparative Religion at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. We are excited to hear his views on certain trends in faith and religion: the shrinkage or growth of various faith denominations and traditions; the significance of the rise of the “nones,” especially among Gen Z and Millennials; and the connection between faith traditions and social justice movements. After some discussion in our last episode about the relevance of religion in today’s society, we decided to expand on some of these issues. We went straight to an expert, and we are so grateful that Professor Lloyd-Moffett is with us today!



RELEVANT LINKS
People of Faith for Justice Understanding the Nones Mainline Protestants Are Still Declining, But That’s Not Good News for Evangelicals “Spiritual, but not religious” Repairers in the Breach Rev. William Barber (American Protestant minister and social activist) The Lavra (Housing cooperative in San Luis Obispo County, California) Monastic Republic of Mt. Athos Orthodox Christianity Comparative Religion Classical Secularism Charismatic Christianity The Book of Joy   
 
MORE ABOUT OUR GUEST PROFESSOR STEPHEN LLOYD MOFFETT
Dr. Stephen Lloyd-Moffett is a professor of Comparative Religion at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, occasional columnist for the Tribune, and advocate for religious dialogue. An internationally-known scholar of Religious Studies, Professor Lloyd-Moffett has published academic works on ancient monasticism, modern Greek Christianity, the religious life of Cesar Chavez, communal living, and the spirituality of wine. Over the past two decades, he has given over 500 public talks to local groups to help further our understanding of religion. Professor Lloyd-Moffett is the past recipient of the Cal Poly College of Liberal Arts teaching award and the “Top 20 Under 40” award from the San Luis Obispo Tribune. With his partner, Steve co-founded The Lavra, a gathering spot and intentional sustainable living community outside Arroyo Grande, CA
 
SUPPORT PFJ
We greatly appreciate your financial support so that we can continue to educate, advocate and pray for the things that matter to our organization. Please consider donating through PayPal. 
People of Faith for Justice is a 501(c)(3) non-profit  organization.



CREDITS
The People of Faith for Justice Podcast is produced and edited by Jeff Manildi
Music for the People of Faith for Justice Podcast is provided by Andrew Gorman

Join us after our Thanksgiving month break to get to know some of the folks who serve on the People of Faith for Justice Board of Directors! Maggie Fertschneider and Rich Kurrasch join us today to share their faith journeys, challenges in justice work, and how  justice work can be deepened within a faith perspective. We ponder the questions of which justice issues are most imperative, and whether faith communities will continue to be relevant to today’s society.



RELEVANT LINKS
People of Faith for Justice United Methodist Church Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) United Church of Christ Congregational Cornel West (American philosopher, political activist, social critic, actor, and public intellectual) UMC of Atascadero John Wesley (English cleric, theologian, and evangelist, who was a leader of a revival movement within the Church of England known as Methodism) Understanding the Nones Mainline Protestants Are Still Declining, But That’s Not Good News for Evangelicals “Spiritual, but not religious” Climate Change Black Lives Matter R.A.C.E. Matters Repairers in the Breach Rev. William Barber (American Protestant minister and social activist) Institute for Ecological Civilization Allies for Immigration Justice


MORE ABOUT OUR GUESTS
Rev. Dr. Rich Kurrasch
While a native of South Dakota, Rev. Dr. Richard Kurrasch traces his roots more to Los Angeles and what some call the “religion of California” in the 1950s and 1960s. That landscape apparently nurtured a more substantial faith as well. What emerged in the Nebraska Panhandle where he and his wife, Ann Marie, met became what would be a constant in their lives for fifty years: his parishioners. That journey would include pastorates in California and the Upper Midwest, with an unexpected detour to Maui. For many years he served Congregational churches, though in recent years he has found his ecclesiastical home with the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).
Rich earned his undergraduate degree from the University of California at Riverside, a Master of Divinity degree from Bethany Theological Seminary (the graduate School of Religion of the Church of the Brethren), and a Doctor of Ministry degree from the School of Theology at Claremont, California.
Beyond the local church, Richard had the unique privilege to serve as Moderator of the International Congregational Fellowship which included a quadrennial meeting in Seoul, South Korea. Other theological interests include explorations in desert and wilderness spirituality and the intersection between religion and the arts, particularly in contemporary American novels. He enjoys writing and hopes to publish a memoir in the coming year.
Since retiring on the Central Coast, Rich has served on the Board of Directors of People of Faith for Justice where he is especially interested in addressing the looming climate crisis with the insights of Process Theology.
Maggie Ferschneider 
Maggie was born on July 30, 1931; she is known as a “cradle” Methodist, as Maggie’s parents, grandparents and great-grandparents were all Methodists.  
Maggie’s first memories were of attending Sunday School and later, becoming part of the Methodist Youth Fellowship. There, Maggie began to see that working for justice and social action were a part of her faith. Amos’ words in the Bible, "Do you know what I want? I want justice–rivers of it. I want  fairness–rivers of it. That's what I want. That's all I want,” became powerful to Maggie. Jesus' words, "Love one another and treat others as you want them to treat you," became the most important words in the Bible to Maggie. Maggie says, “If you feel everyone has a right to Universal Health Care, then you need to advocate for that. That means educating your faith community as well as working with Congress.” 
All of her life, Maggie has been given the opportunity to develop and be the leader of many committees and agencies within the Methodist Cal-