The recipient of this year's Grabill-Homan Peace Prize is the Reverend Kelley Becker, associate pastor of First Christian Church in Bloomington. Becker is being recognized for her work with the homeless and several community groups.
The annual award is named for former Illinois State University Professors Joseph L. Grabill and Gerlof D. Homan, who established ISU's peace and conflict resolution studies program.
Becker said that her friendship with many homeless people began by accident, when she was working as a youth director at First Presbyterian Church, which had some extra sandwiches to give away.
"My son, Andrew, and I went to all different places in town looking for people who were hungry and needed a lunch," Becker recalled. "In the process of that, we found people who were living outside in tents that I had heard about, but had never been face to face with, had never heard their stories or learned their names. And I knew at the end of the week I couldn't pretend I didn't know they were there any longer."
That experience led Becker to arrange for a cadre of volunteers, including herself, to cook and deliver meals four days a week to the people she calls the "hidden homeless."
Becker said many homeless people are forced to sleep outdoors because the community's two shelters, Safe Harbor and Home Sweet Home Ministries, are often full. During the night, some set up makeshift tents on commercial property, disappearing again in the daylight.
"Of course the community is uncomfortable with seeing people who clearly live outside and so we have a tendency to push people who live outside into the shadows," she said. "We have done that pretty well in Bloomington-Normal."
Businesses, she added, are often reluctant to allow the homeless to remain inside their establishments during the day. "So they get a lot of move along, move along, and gradually we shift them out, away for us. The unfortunate part of that is that any time we push people into the shadows, we make them feel like the other. And my ministry is a lot about saying nobody is the other."
Becker said much of her pastoral work involves "being present," but she also has officiated at a funeral for a homeless man she got to know, and on occasion has brought communion to people she met living on the streets. "And they will call me when a crisis happens," she said. "I'm very aware of the fact that I don't know what would happen to me if I lost my job, and my family and friends gave up on me, and I lost my home," Becker said.
One bright spot , Becker said, is the local "Tiny House" effort in which small, inexpensive structures, often sponsored by churches, can provide shelter for individuals currently living outdoors.
"We're currently discussing if there a way for us to secure some land and get some zoning worked out so we can have some tiny homes positioned in a part of our community that would have bus access and enable people who are currently homeless to truly be part of the community," Becker said.
One such "tiny house" has already been built at a cost of $6,000. It was placed for a time in the First Christian Christian parking and later the parking lot at Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Bloomington.
Plans are under way to construct an additional house. "A lot of this needs to come from the faith community, to say you know what, everybody needs a roof over their head and what can we do to help?" Becker said. "Certainly if our faith communities each sponsored a person who is chronically homeless, we would not have anyone living outside."
Becker is also faith and outreach chair for Not In Our Town, a group that seeks to foster relationships between people of different races and faiths. Becker helped arrange open house events at two of Bloomington's mosques and its Hindu Temple. A similar event is planned for the Mose Montefiore synagogue. "'Our goal is to make Bloomington Normal a place where people of any faith or no faith feel welcome." Becker said.
"I really feel the key to peace and living together in a welcoming, inclusive community is understanding one another and hearing the stories of our neighbors. When I was a youth minister one of the things I did with kids was talk about the difference between tolerating other people and embracing other people," she added.
Becker also helps oversee the annual West Side Back to School Block Party, a mult-church event that provides school supplies for local children. She has also worked on LGBT issues and an improving police-community relations. Becker will receive her award at a reception Monday evening at the ISU Alumni Center. The award includes a donation to an established scholarship or program at Illinois State chosen by the recipient.