Last week, the Milwaukee cluster hosted a public civic ritual that drew 75 guests from five area synagogues, five area churches, and five faith/interfaith organizations, along with voter rights groups and community coalitions. The evening included dinner, a presentation on the faith250 texts, an introduction to artist Niki Johnson’s Pillars of Democracy series, a community art workshop, and a typewriter poet who composed verses on the spot for attendees. Tabling organizations passed out stickers, necklaces, postcards, and flyers, and the evening closed with a civic action project on voter participation, funded by Repair the World.
One of the cluster participants shared, “Through hands-on art making and conversation, participants explored identity, voice, and the power of civic participation. Spread throughout the room were newspapers and magazines, ready to be clipped, cut, and punched. Participants reflected on what words best represented their thoughts on democracy. These cut outs will be included in Niki Johnson's next art installation, one that truly represents democracy.”
What made the night notable was not just its scope but what it set in motion. Several attendees are now planning to travel nearly 90 minutes north to attend the cluster’s next public civic ritual in Appleton on July 7, and are actively promoting it to friends in the area. Meanwhile, the Appleton cluster’s own interfaith gatherings have already drawn 31 in-person participants and another 13 online. That kind of momentum, one community sparking engagement in the next, is exactly what the faith250 public civic ritual is designed to do.
