Coalition Crosses Religious Lines to Aid the Community

As she sat on her deck with her walker in front of her, surveying the crowd of people working to repair her home, Geraldine Dorsey was pleased about the volunteers who came together — from different faiths — to help her.

“They were one,” Dorsey said of the members of three synagogues and one mosque who gathered April 25 to make repairs to the home of the 75-year-old Mount Airy resident, who suffers from multiple sclerosis and has limited mobility.

The interfaith group, which has dubbed its collaborative efforts CIRCLE, or the Columbia-Rockville Interfaith Rebuilding Coalition for Living Enhancement, was there to repair the home suggested by Rebuilding Together Howard County, a nonprofit that uses volunteers and donated materials to repair homes for the elderly, people with disabilities or for low-income families.

The three synagogues involved were Bet Aviv and Beth Shalom, both in Columbia; and Kol Shalom, in Rockville. The participating mosque was Dar Al-Taqwa, in Ellicott City.

The day also marked National Rebuilding Day, an annual Rebuilding Together activity that is held nation-wide. Dorsey’s home was one of 23 residences the Howard County volunteers repaired.

Besides providing Dorsey with an updated kitchen, front porch, doors and landscaping, CIRCLE was formed to encourage dialogue and relationship-building between the synagogues and mosque.

“It shows that we can work together in harmony,” Gary Metz, of the Bet Aviv congregation, said.

Metz was part of a contingent from Bet Aviv that visited Dar Al-Taqwa last year in an effort to forge ties with the local Muslim community. After the visit, Metz decided to reach out to the leaders at the mosque and asked them to be a part of CIRCLE in late 2009.

Metz believes that communication was key to building a relationship between the various congregations.

“Like any marriage, (if) you don’t communicate … there’s going to be problems,” he said.

Ayman Nassar, a youth leader at the mosque who participated in the renovations, said that his congregation was eager to work with the others.

“It’s a great opportunity for the different faiths and backgrounds to meet face-to-face … and to interact in a real-life activity,” he said.

“It’s an opportunity to educate each other and learn from each other.”

Nassar and eight other mosque members, most of them young people, were tasked with tearing down a shed on Dorsey’s property, repairing gutters and other activities.

Nassar said he had hoped to bring up to 20 people from his congregation to aid in the effort, but limited space in a small house precluded that. Metz estimates that there were about 50 volunteers working in the home throughout the day, each taking shifts.

In preparation for the April 25 event, Metz coordinated and assigned various tasks to the volunteers, which included an occupational therapist, a plumber and other professionals.

For Dorsey, the spirit of the collaboration was symbolic and she said she hopes that same spirit will spread to regions of the world in conflict.

“If we could do that more often, the world would be a better place,” she said.

source