Faith Food Action Network

“Therefore, encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.” – 1 Thessalonians 5:11

Our current political time of day and climate challenges us, as God's children, to respond emphatically with compassion, faith, empathy, courage, a commitment to justice, and a focus on building community and nurturing relationships. We find ourselves confronting and resisting a federal administration that is cutting jobs, essential social services, and public health infrastructure, which is disproportionately affecting our families, friends, neighbors, and the most vulnerable members of our community. We are all we have now, and we must confront these challenges and hardships creatively, in harmony and solidarity, to protect the sanctity of humanity and the dignity that comes with it. In the words of Cesar Chavez, “From the depth of need and despair, people can work together, can organize themselves to solve their own problems and fill their own needs with dignity and strength.”

To highlight the importance and necessity of this perspective, the Wisconsin Council of Churches, in partnership with the Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee-area churches, and the general community, launched the Faith Food Action Network, a food-based mutual aid project. The Faith Food Action Network concentrates on improving mental health outcomes through food access in predominantly African American churches and communities in southeast Wisconsin. The project utilizes a mutual aid model to foster solidarity, community, and connectivity between faith-based institutions and the wider community. Staff from the WCC (in the capacity of Project Director) collaborate with five to six committed local church groups to establish Faith Food Action Teams, which serve as planning and organizing committees. WCC also provides initial seed investments and helps to facilitate discussions and strategic planning. This support will help the Faith Food Action Teams develop and sustain creative mutual aid projects while leveraging additional resources

Our Partners

The Wisconsin Council of Churches partnered with the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee to secure a 24-month community-led momentum grant from the Advancing a Healthier Wisconsin Endowment Fund. This grant covers staff time for the project. Additionally, the Wisconsin Council of Churches continues to raise extra funds to provide seed investments to each Faith Food Action Team while leveraging additional resources.

Who are the congregations involved?

Each congregation established its own Faith Food Action Team, consisting of church and community members. We aim to invite those who benefit from the project to take on leadership roles and participate actively. This approach emphasizes mutual aid, fostering solidarity, community, and democracy rather than providing charity or maintaining the status quo. It’s not about giving to or serving people; mutual aid recognizes that we all need one another and must support each other, especially in our current political climate.

Additionally, this project helps churches develop deeper personal relationships with community members, brings people together, and encourages their involvement in the church. This includes friends, family, social acquaintances, and others. 

The churches currently committed:

  • Cross Lutheran Church

  • St. Mark A.M.E.

  • Greater Galilee Baptist Church

  • Ascension Fellowship

  • Albright Trinity U.M.C.

Mutual Aid Project Ideas:

  • Starting a community garden on a vacant lot or a church lawn

  • A farmer's market where people can exchange produce

  • A mobile food pantry that brings supplies into the neighborhood and encourages donations from the neighborhood

  • Food delivery systems for the sick and shut-in

  • Community dinners and roundtable discussions

  • Healthy nutrition coaching and discussions

  • Creating a community fridge or little free pantry

  • Setting up a Facebook group in which people can request food support or offer it

  • A phone network that makes sure elderly neighbors are getting adequate nutrition

  • Bringing together leaders of local feeding programs to coordinate and extend their work

  • Even a community food pantry or meal, based on the expectation that everyone participates and gives back, can count as mutual aid.

History of Mutual Aid

Black mutual aid societies played a crucial role in the lives of African Americans during slavery and the post-slavery period, spanning from before the Civil War to the Reconstruction era and into the Jim Crow era. These cooperative organizations provided essential services such as medical care, funeral and burial, childcare, groceries, public markets, life insurance, banking and financial support, and assistance purchasing land and livestock. In more recent times, the COVID-19 pandemic has sparked a resurgence of both online and grassroots mutual aid networks.

The Free African Society, founded in Philadelphia in 1787, was a non-denominational organization pioneering a mutual aid society for free African Americans in Philadelphia. It served their social and material needs. The Society aimed to address its community's physical, social, and spiritual needs by offering fellowship, financial support, and a place of worship.

The Free African Society's focus on self-governance and community support resulted in the creation of the first independent African American churches in the United States. This development significantly influenced the emergence of African American religious traditions, such as the African Methodist Episcopal Church.

Get Involved!

We believe in this work and need your help and support to facilitate this. We aim to endow each participating church with an initial seed investment of $1000 to help them execute their mutual aid project. Consider donating (designate Mutual Aid) to the Wisconsin Council of Churches to help with this effort.

If you have any personal or professional connections to help augment resources (connections to food distribution organizations, equipment, expertise), please contact Eyon Biddle, Sr.

Food connects us, feeds us, sustains us. As we attempt to build community, address food insecurity and mental health, and improve connectedness in the Milwaukee area, we are reminded of a simple fact elucidated again by Cesar Chavez, “If you really want to make a friend, go to someone's house and eat with him...the people who give you their food give you their heart.”