Annual Convening

You are warmly invited to join us for our annual statewide interfaith climate convening beginning Sunday, January 25th 2-4PM.

The Annual Convening (formerly Conference) has been a core offering of Pennsylvania Interfaith Power & Light (PA IPL) for many years. It serves as a way to connect passionate individuals across the state, strengthen multifaith community, and build momentum to address climate change as a moral issue here in the Keystone State. This year, we are again presenting a fully virtual event!

As we work to build new worlds, we need our imaginations more than ever. Building on our theme of community care from our Bike and Hike in May, this year’s theme for our Annual Convening is Love your Neighbor, Love your World. Together we will explore how love guides our actions in relationship to our neighbors and our world. What does it mean to steward love in times of despair and injustice? How do we ground our labor for environmental justice in revolutionary love?

Our Annual Convening was originally scheduled for October 26th from 1-6pm. We have made the choice to reimagine our gathering and postpone in order to better serve the needs of our network and ensure our programming is accessible to everyone. We are rescheduling to January 25th 2026 from 2-4pm. We will kick off the day with our fireside chat with Valarie Kaur followed by our Laudato Si fireside chat with special guests.

Then you are invited to join us each day from Monday, January 26th through Thursday, January 29th from 7-8pm, where we will be hosting each of our four workshops as their own one hour session. Spreading them out in this way will allow everyone to join live for all of our programming rather than having to choose between two options. If you can’t make it to one of these sessions, they will be recorded.

Anyone can host a watch party in your living room, community space, or really anywhere you’d like! Request this option on the registration form to be sent a watch party guide. All that is required is a heated room, good wifi connection, a screen and projector, and a point person who can volunteer 3-5 hours in advance of the day in preparation as well as be present on the day. 

You are also invited to join one of our official watch party locations. They are in Aston, Philadelphia, Lancaster, Scranton, and State College!

Tickets are offered on a sliding scale. Please choose the option that fits your ability best. Use the coupon codes reflected below on check out to automatically apply the discounts reflected below. If you can give above ticket prices, please consider making a donation!

If you are a PA IPL member (or your congregation is), be sure to check your email for a discount code.

Ticket Options

Supporter – $15 (STANDARD TICKET, NO CODE NEEDED)

Friend – $10 (USE CODE FRIEND25)

Builder – $5 (USE CODE BUILDER25)

Pay-It-Forward – $25 or $50 (OPTIONAL REGISTRATION TICKETS)

If these prices are still prohibitive to your attendance, please reach out to director@paipl.org. Scholarships are available. If you would like to contribute more than $100, please consider a sponsorship (see details below) or make a donation: https://paipl.us/give/

SUNDAY, JANUARY 25, 2026

1:30 – 2:00PM
Zoom room opens with virtual tabling and highlight reel

2:00 – 3:00PM
Fireside chat with Valarie Kaur

3:00 – 4:00PM
Fireside chat panel reflecting on 10 years of Laudato Si

MONDAY, JANUARY 26, 2026

7:00 – 8:00PM
Workshop #1: Tending Old, Growing New – Trees and Faithful Climate Action

TUESDAY, JANUARY 27, 2026

7:00 – 8:00PM
Workshop #2: Your Story of Self: Faith-based Organizing for Connection

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 28, 2026

7:00 – 8:00PM
Workshop #3: Pollinating Resilient Futures – Gardening for People and Planet

THURSDAY, JANUARY 29, 2026

7:00 – 8:00PM
Workshop #4: the practice of love, according to bell hooks

We are excited to share that Valarie Kaur will be joining us for a fireside chat! Valarie Kaur is a renowned civil rights leader, lawyer, award-winning filmmaker, educator, innovator, and best-selling author of See No Stranger: A Memoir and Manifesto of Revolutionary Love. She is also the founder of the Revolutionary Love Project which is building a movement to reclaim love as a force for justice, healing, and transformation in America. She believes the love ethic is essential to birthing a multi-racial democracy and sustainable future. She declares, “Revolutionary Love is the call of our times — the choice to leave no one outside our circle of care.” This fireside chat guided by our Executive Director K will set the tone for our Annual Convening this year and start a generative discussion about the role of revolutionary love in our movement for environmental justice.
 

VALARIE KAUR is a renowned civil rights leader, lawyer, award-winning filmmaker, educator, innovator, and best-selling author of SEE NO STRANGER. She is the founder of the Revolutionary Love Project, where she leads a movement to reclaim love as a force for justice. Valarie burst into global consciousness when her Watch Night Service address went viral with 40 million views worldwide. Her question — “Is this the darkness of the tomb, or the darkness of the womb?” — is a beacon for people fighting for our future.

Valarie became an activist when a Sikh father and family friend Balbir Singh Sodhi was the first person murdered in hate violence in the aftermath of 9/11. Since then, she has led visionary campaigns to tell untold stories and change policy on issues ranging from hate crimes to solitary confinement to digital freedom. In 2021, she led the People’s Inauguration, inspiring millions of Americans to renew their role in building a healthy, multiracial democracy.

Today, the Revolutionary Love Project equips communities with practical tools to transform the nation from inside out. In Fall 2022, Valarie was honored at the White House in the first-ever Uniters Ceremony, recognizing her as a prophetic leader whose work is healing America. In 2024, Valarie led the Revolutionary Love Bus Tour, a healing odyssey to 45+ cities across the United States, igniting one message: “Revolutionary Love is the call of our times.”

Valarie earned degrees at Stanford University, Harvard Divinity School, and Yale Law School, and holds several honorary doctorates. She has created groundbreaking initiatives at the intersection of spirituality, storytelling, and social justice, including Groundswell Movement, Faithful Internet, and the Yale Visual Law Project. She speaks widely and has been a regular TV commentator on MSNBC and contributor to CNN, NPR, PBS, the Hill, and the Washington Post. Her books envision a world rooted in the ethic of love — and show us how to get there. SEE NO STRANGER: A Memoir and Manifesto of Revolutionary Love became a #1 LA Times bestseller, is based on her acclaimed TED talk. Her new book SAGE WARRIOR is an epic journey into Sikh wisdom and a spiritual handbook for apocalyptic timed, accompanied by a musical album by legendary artist Sonny Singh. Her children’s book WORLD OF WONDER teaches Revolutionary Love to the next generation

Valarie’s vision is deeply inspired by her Sikh faith. A daughter of Punjabi farmers, Valarie grew up on the farmlands of California, where her family has lived for more than a century. Her grandfather gave her Sikh wisdom through stories and songs that showed the way of the sant-sipahi, sage-warrior. The sage loves; the warrior fights — it is a path of revolutionary love.

For our closing session, we will be reflecting on 10 years since Pope Francis issued Laudato Si, an encyclical on care for our common home. Following a panel discussion format, we will explore themes within this letter as well as better understand how it has shaped faith rooted attempts to respond to climate change across the globe. What lessons does this document contain as we seek to ground ourselves in revolutionary love that sparks change in our own communities?

Would you like to learn more about Laudato Si? You can start by watching this short video documentary called “The Letter” here.

Donna Marie Korba, IHM

Sister Donna is an artist, teacher, missionary and lover of life. She has worked as a high school teacher in schools in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, teaching Art, Religion, and Spanish, served as a missionary in Guatemala for over 12 years where she lived and ministered within the Mayan indigenous community in Chichicastenango, El Quiche’, and presently serves as the Director of the Office of Justice, Peace, and Integrity of Creation for the IHM Sisters where she heads up the EarthCARE, and JPIC Committees. She is a Member of the Congregation of the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Scranton , PA. She co-leads the PAIPL spiritual care program. Nature, running and walking, playing guitar for liturgical, and all things green are some of her enjoyments.

Kari Pohl

Kari Pohl is a member of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Baden, Pennsylvania (a congregation of women religious within the Roman Catholic tradition) and currently serves as their Congregational Coordinator of Justice and Peace.  In that role, she promotes the congregation’s values by providing education and advocacy in the areas of creation care, food security, anti-racism, and immigration reform.

Phoebe Chatfield

Phoebe Chatfield (she/her) lives in Somerville, MA, on the land of the Massachusetts, Wampanoag, and Pawtucket peoples, between the Charles river and the Mystic river. For six years she worked for the Episcopal Church at the denomination level, as program associate and then staff officer for Creation Care and Environmental Justice. A longtime organizer and network-weaver, Phoebe is passionate about the role that people of faith and young people can play in climate and environmental justice. Phoebe has a dual degree from Yale College in Environmental Studies and Ethnicity, Race, and Migration, and currently works as Development Organizer for the Coalition to Dismantle the Doctrine of Discovery.

Meryl Crean

Rabbi Meryl Crean (she, her) was one of five clergy cyclists on the first Philly to D.C. bike ride with PA IPL to lobby for responsible climate change legislation in 2018. She is a Geriatric Chaplain serving the Wesley Enhanced Living – Main Line community for 25 years. When not caring for elders or working for Climate Justice, Rabbi Crean advocates for Justice for Palestinians with Rabbis for Ceasefire, Jewish Voice for Peace, and Christian-Jewish Allies for a Just Peace for Israel-Palestine.

Monday, January 26, 7pm – Tending Old, Growing New – Trees and Faithful Climate Action

Over the past 5 years, PA IPL has put over 200,000 native plants in the ground through the PA Plants Native! Program. Thanks to our extensive and committed network of volunteers, and a program open to any and all Pennsylvanians, our trees have made it to almost every corner of the Keystone State. The great thing about planting native trees? They are largely and cyclically self-sustaining, and support not only the safety, health, and wellbeing of our human communities, but the plants, animals, and cycles that make up our ecosystems as well. As the climate crisis worsens, prioritizing principles of accessibility and equity in our work is becoming ever more important, and we have no intention of stopping anytime soon. Why stop when the work has just begun?

PA IPL’s Executive Director, K Ruth, and SEPA Organizer, Tyler Fowler, will be facilitating and presenting this session, with presentations from representatives from American Forest!

Lida Aljabar-Senior Director, Catalyst Initiative

Lida (Meliha) Aljabar leads the Catalyst Initiative, American Forests’ initiative to expand the Tree Equity movement across America. Prior to American Forests, Lida served as Director of Climate Resiliency Planning & Policy at NYC Housing Preservation & Development, where she led initiatives in disaster recovery, climate resilience and affordable housing in frontline communities. Previously, she managed the national Climate-Smart Cities program at The Trust for Public Land, advancing green infrastructure through partnerships and civic technology, and worked as a park planner in the Washington, DC area. Lida is an adjunct professor of community planning at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, and serves on the Board of The Greenlining Institute, an Oakland-based racial justice organization. She is an AICP certified planner, LEED Accredited Professional and holds a Master of Urban & Regional Planning, and BA in Public & Urban Affairs from Virginia Tech.

Joshua Simon-Senior Manager, Environmental Justice Initiatives

Joshua Simon works to strengthen direct and on-the-ground engagement of frontline communities most impacted by Tree Equity with the goal of providing access to American Forests’ Tree Equity tools and programs. Prior to joining American Forests, Joshua worked as the diversity and inclusion coordinator for a regional park district in Central Ohio working at the intersection of community engagement, workforce development and internal DEI initiatives development. Joshua is a native of Louisiana and has a bachelor’s degree in Urban Forestry from Southern University and A&M College, and a Masters degree in Environmental Social Science with a minor in Public Policy and Management from Ohio State University.

Join us as we celebrate every tree planted, reflect on the values our work is rooted in, and sow seeds for the future of our tree planting program.

Tuesday, January 27, 7pm – Your Story of Self: Faith-based Organizing for Connection

Are you interested in community organizing and curious about how faith-based organizing works? What does it mean to “arrive right” in a community, and how can we build effective relationships both locally and globally? Join Renika Weimer (Outreach and Advocacy Manager) for an introductory interactive session about faith-based issue responsive organizing! We’ll talk about what it means to build relationships while staying safe and connected in the current landscape.

Marqus Cole, organizing director with Georgia Interfaith Power & Light

We will be joined by Marqus Cole, the organizing director with Georgia Interfaith Power & Light. In this capacity, he leads GIPL’s advocacy initiatives including federal work with the Climate Action Campaign, intervention at the Public Service Commission, and water policy work with the Georgia Water Coalition. An attorney by training, his thought leadership sits at the intersection of racial, environmental & biblical justice with a passion for helping organize people and communities toward reconciliation and restoration. Marqus finds himself living and working in a hinge community, at a hinge moment, for historic climate action. Marqus uses his unique voice to share stories and teach others to share their stories, that bridge the gap between key stakeholder communities and the policies they need. He engages communities from his experience and context as a Black, millennial, professional, and person of faith working in the civic arena in the Bible Belt. Marqus holds a Juris Doctorate (J.D.) from DePaul College of Law and a Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) from Georgia State University in Political Science.

Wednesday, January 28, 7pm – Pollinating Resilient Futures – Gardening for People and Planet

We love our pollinators! That’s why PA IPL is rolling out round two of the Sacred Grounds program in Delaware, and the first round West/Southwest Philadelphia in collaboration with the National Wildlife Federation!

Faith communities are on the frontlines of climate catastrophe mitigation and response. They provide critical resources and services to communities, and are often central locations for volunteers, donations, coordination with emergency workers, and provide blankets when it’s cold, cooling when it’s hot, access to food pantries and other critical resources that communities need as extreme weather events increase and worsen.

To build strong resiliency work, communities need resilient infrastructure – infrastructure that addresses and mitigates the worst impacts of climate change. Pollinator gardens, rain gardens, and other community greening efforts are one piece of that puzzle! They increase the biodiversity in an area, attract pollinators like moths, butterflies, and bees, support soil health, improve water quality, and help manage stormwater runoff. Join Ty Fowler (SEPA Outreach Coordinator and Organizer) and Sparrow Francis (Distributed Organizer and Special Projects Coordinator) for an interactive session where you’ll learn and reflect on community resilience in the context of our built environment.

Lindsey Walker, Senior Manager of Education & Community Conservation for National Wildlife Federation’s Mid-Atlantic Regional Center

We will also be joined by special guest speaker Lindsey Walker! Lindsey (she/her) is the Senior Manager of Education & Community Conservation for National Wildlife Federation’s Mid-Atlantic Regional Center. Along with her team, she partners with community groups in urban centers – particularly Baltimore, Wilmington (DE), Lancaster, and Philadelphia – to create native pollinator habitats and other small-scale watershed restoration projects at community-based sites, organize environmental education events, and implement NWF’s Garden for Wildlife and EcoSchools programs locally. Previously, Lindsey led volunteer and community engagement programs at Fairmount Park Conservancy in Philadelphia. She holds a Master’s of Environmental Studies from the University of Pennsylvania and lives on the best block in South Philly with her husband and young son.

We will hold this space for introspection and ideation. Join us for an interactive session where you’ll reflect with others on what it takes to increase your communities’ resilience, and hear about how the Sacred Grounds program supports climate resilience projects!

Thursday, January 29, 7pm – the practice of love, according to bell hooks

What exactly is love? What does it mean to practice revolutionary love? Can love really change the world? These questions have prompted many thinkers, writers, and poets. For this session, we will dive into the works of three feminist writers – bell hooks, Audre Lorde, and Mary Oliver. By exploring themes across their works, we will uncover lessons that shape our own longings for change and the ways in which we are motivated to action with love at the center. This session will be guided and interactive, led by K Ruth and special guest Precious Diamond B.

K Ruth, Executive Director of Pennsylvania Interfaith Power & Light

K Ruth connects humans to the planet, each other, and themselves. Since 2022, they have been responsible for supporting a volunteer board and small team of staff in cultivating a moral response to climate change that is interfaith, inclusive, and intentional. K oversees operations and management, development and fundraising, program and grant implementation, and strategic vision.

K is focused on weaving relationships that disrupt systems of oppression and grow beloved community. They are passionate about justice with a bias toward action, rooted in a decolonizing queer ecofeminist relational praxis. They hold a Masters in Public Leadership from United Lutheran Seminary/Temple University specialized in multifaith social change. Their career spans a variety of experience in nonprofit administration, community organizing, and faith-based social services.

Precious Diamond B., Arts and Culture Practitioner, Community Herbalist, and Visual Archivist

Precious Diamond B. is an arts and culture practitioner, community herbalist, and visual archivist. She collaborates with culture bearers and healers to lead workshops, curate conversations, and develop visual projects that center holistic wellness and liberatory dreaming.

For ten years Precious was based in Baltimore, MD cultivating her artist practice and arts administration journey after graduating from the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Illustration and concentration in Printmaking. Her creative practice blossomed with her visual journalism senior thesis Creatives of Color, a research project that collected the stories of Baltimore arts and arts administration innovators through type and illustration. In 2020 she expanded her artistic vision with Celestial Beings, an archiving project that charted the intergenerational journeys of five Black femmes who engage in spiritual practice as a healing art. Currently, Precious is rooted in Philadelphia. Her current creative practice centers African/Indigenous traditional plant medicine and Hoodoo spiritual rituals through herbal medicine boxes, eco-conscious printmaking, and intimate communal gatherings.

As an arts administrator, she has held several leadership positions in development, communications, arts education programming, grantmaking, and operations at local, statewide, and national arts organizations. In addition to her personal creative work and arts administration practice, Precious partners with non-profits, publications, organizations, and artists to create site or topic specific illustrative pieces, launch arts-based initiatives and/or conduct research projects.

We are so grateful to this year’s sponsors and outreach partners for their support!

GOLD

Are you interested in supporting this event as a sponsor or outreach partner? Follow the links below or reach out to sparrow@paipl.org to start a conversation!

To register as a sponsor, please visit: https://forms.gle/rEgFfrbcH9K3tGTt9

To register as an outreach partner, please visit: https://forms.gle/bHW3yTe8XoQWKsMy7