RAISING SPARKS INTERFAITH MINISTRY

Description

In 2018, having witnessed many obstacles to healing in existing systems, two people with over three decades of combined experience working in San Francisco mental health services, Reverend Ann Marie Coletta and Greg Aherne, decided to try something new: taking to the streets to address the underlying emotional and spiritual needs of communities experiencing homelessness in the Tenderloin & South of Market, in order for them to better engage in existing city services and programs. Raising Sparks was created out of the belief that offering radical acceptance and supportive, loving community allows people living in trauma and hardship to build the self-esteem necessary to seek and accept needed care.

Our programs (offerings) include our PB&J Ministry, which takes to the streets to distribute peanut butter & jelly sandwiches, other meals, and hygiene and harm reduction supplies, such as Narcan, as well as host outdoor meal events in alleyways; our Interfaith Street Chaplaincy, which provides one-on-one spiritual care and harm reduction and recovery support; and our Community Arts program, which aims to support and platform the artists within our unhoused and marginally housed communities.

We envision a city that honors every human being as sacred, in which people who are experiencing homelessness, addiction, and trauma are seen, heard, loved, and respected as whole and priceless beings.