After a successful 32-year history of organizing, 320 leaders from Bastrop, Comal, Hays, Travis, McLennan (Waco) and Williamson counties officially renamed and re-founded itself as Central Texas Interfaith (CTI). Leaders from 8 geographic clusters launched local organizing strategies that have extended the reach of Central Texas Interfaith into a 10-county region heading into the 2020 elections.

Leaders told gripping stories about responding to homelessness and mobile home displacement, caring for aging parents, confronting racial discrimination in traffic stops and checkpoints, winning local fights around bridges and park cleanup and the success of the IAF 'Recognizing the Stranger' immigration strategy. Delegates affirmed an agenda of issues informed by these stories and committed to signing up 50,000 voters to support that agenda across all 10 counties.

Delegates also committed to raising $250,000 to support a robust, nonpartisan accountability and Get Out The Vote strategy in 2020.

Leveraging $25,000 for long-term job training, Corridor Interfaith leaders from Living Word Lutheran and San Marcos Unitarian Universalism succeeded in persuading Hays County Commissioners to invest local dollars into Capital IDEA.  Once matched with state ACE funding, the investment will allow 7-10 Hays County students to train out of poverty and into middle-class careers. 

Leaders met with their Hays County representatives over several months to educate them about Capital IDEA and to advocate for the inclusion of funding in the 2020 budget.  At the final budget hearing at the commissioners' court, the request was quickly moved forward and approved!

Over 100 East Austin congregational members and officers packed the house at Holy Cross Catholic for Austin Interfaith's Community Policing Civic Academy.  The event was jointly hosted by leaders from Holy Cross, Ebenezer Baptist, Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic and Mount Olive Baptist Churches. 

In this session, congregational leaders told stories, shared a brief history of community policing and broke out into small groups for conversations rooted in local experience.