"He has declared to you, O man, what is good, and what does the Lord require of you, but to do justice, to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God?"

Micah 6:8

ICARE Celebration  June 14th at 7:00pm at St. Paul AME Church (6910 New Kings Road I- 95 North exit at Martin Luther King, Jr. Parkway West (20th Street Expressway). You’ll cross the railroad tracks, 45th Street, Edgewood Avenue, and Richardson Road. There will be a turning lane on the left allowing you to make a U-turn to enter St. Paul A.M.E. Church.

Bus to ICARE Nehemiah was packed full!

ICARE is a faith-based advocacy organization which holds government accountable for seeking solutions to the community problems identified by its membership. St. Mark's is among the 27 local faith congregations who belong to ICARE.
  

ICARE in Action!

Community Problems Assembly Update November 2011: Thanks to all of you who attended the ICARE Assembly at the Mandarin United Methodist Church November 8th, 2011. The meeting addressed issues of jobs and homelessness within our community and was successful in getting the attention of Mayor Brown!

After hearing updates on ongoing efforts in Restorative Justice, Homelessness and Education,  the 500+ people from 25 congregations went into congregational caucuses then returned to the vote.  St. Mark’s cast all 14 votes to address the issue of  Jobs because it is the one issue that can positively impact the other two.  The entire assembly agreed. On Nov 29^th we will kick off our research into the jobs issue and prepare to present a specific issue and solution at the Nehemiah Assembly on April 23^rd 2012. 

This is a great example of the power of faith-based community organization!
 

ICARE took a big step toward our  Five Year Goal of 5,000 people by 2015 to our Nehemiah Assembly by turning out 1,739 to the 2011 Assembly on April 11.  That was an increase of 589 from last year!  St. Mark’s doubled its participation from 47 to 84.

We received commitments on three separate issues:

1. The State Attorney agreed to take the lead implementing Neighborhood Accountability Boards as a way to divert youth offenders from the Juvenile Justice system
2. Mayoral Candidate, Alvin Brown agreed, if elected to carry on groundwork for a Day Drop-in/Resource Center for homeless in Jacksonville to receive needed service.  An effort begun under the current mayor John Peyton. (Candidate Mike Hogan would not agree to attend after 6 attempts from the Homelessness committee so the entire crowd was given his campaign office number to express their disappointment.  904.374.5894.)
3. The Superintendent of Schools attended which was a victory in and of itself. He committed to attend the assembly a month ago but then announced he would not be there Friday afternoon. Rev. Kammy Young, co-chair of the committee had the courage to press him again on Monday morning and finally got his commitment.  He agreed to implement a highly effective reading curriculum for nearly 1600 elementary and middle school students reading significantly below grade level.  We were pushing for a broader reach of 18,000 students known to be reading below grade level.  We will continue this struggle.
4. Lastly, during our evaluation immediately after the Assembly our representative to the Catholic Bishop announced that the Bishop had authorized an investment of $18,000 in the work of ICARE!