Come Journey with Us !

Statement of Faith Community Leaders for Camp Quixote
Every day, our human community is faced with challenges in building up and supporting the common good.

Famine, war, widespread disease, dispossessed peoples, the threat of tyrants and dictators all test the human spirit and remind us that we are stronger and better when we stand together. Currently we are reminded that one billion people world-wide live in poverty and violence. Nationally, sixteen million people live in a state of “severe poverty.”

On the local level, we are reminded of this as the “Poor Peoples Union” and “Camp Quixote” (our newly formed Tent City) invites us to solidarity with those who have fallen upon hard times. It is not our duty to judge what led to the residents’ circumstances but to care about those who are most at risk in our midst. We must look for a way to live together across the socio-political, religious and humanitarian dimensions of our common life.

We, leaders of faith communities in Thurston County, recall the teachings of our religious traditions that enjoin not only charity but also active engagement to better the lives of our sisters and brothers who have slipped in the realm of “the needy.”

While we are aware that the activities of the Poor Peoples Union and Camp Quixote have become a lightening rod for disdain and controversy in our community, we also recognize that the poor have a religious and constitutional claim to dignity and well-being.

The poor will not go away, no matter how much some of us wish they would; our lives are affected by their poverty as if it were ours. If we are truly one nation under God, then their despair is ours and we must act. Our prayer is that the public, private, charitable and religious communities of Olympia extend understanding, hope and assistance to those women and men who share the fabric of our society.

Our willingness to reach out to those at the margins of society defines us as people of faith and morality. If we fail in this outreach, we fail our entire community. As we have united together in the past to overcome incredible challenges and turn them into grace-filled opportunities, may history record that now is the time that Thurston County came together to lead the way into dignity, responsibility and hope for all.