The relationship also reinforces the LGBTQ-friendly organizations’s missions. Martha’s Pantry was founded in the early 1980s to distribute food to those with HIV and AIDS. In the past, the pantry needed to conceal its work to avoid bomb threats, Smith said.
The churches, meanwhile, allow LGBTQ members and advocate for their rights, a commonality that has strengthened the partnership, Brownell said.
“Part of the damage that’s been done by religious organizations, especially to LGBTQ people, has been just so intense,” Brownell said. “For us to be a mutual place of place of healing around that, that really comes from a point of view of faith because we really believe that Christ loves all and welcomes all and accepts all.”
As the partnership advances, it will see some new faces.
Smith and Jeanie Harman, the pantry’s operations manager, retired this month. They were honored during the service for their decades of service to the pantry.
The new executive director, Brian Forrester, has a social services background and hopes to tighten certain organizational aspects such as record keeping.
“We built this place as a hodgepodge. We saw a need and we found a way to fix it,” Smith said. “He’s going to make this an organization that is just so outstanding, and he’s got the people to work with.”
At the end of the Sunday service, worshipers were asked to sign a poster that included a copy of the covenant. The poster will hang in a shared, visible space in the building.
