NYC Friends Receive Excellence in Social Justice Award from NY State Council of Churches

Fourteen Friends from New York Yearly Meeting attended the New York State Council of Churches (NYSCOC) gala and awards dinner on November 12, 2025, in Albany NY. Awards were given to church groups that served their neighbors and worked to achieve justice. The organizers of the Quaker Walk to Washington, who met and planned their walk at Brooklyn Meeting, received an award for Excellence in Social Justice. Jess Hobb Pifer, Community Organizer for NYC Quakers, gave the following speech when accepting the award, a speech that earned an enthusiastic response from those gathered.

Thank you to the New York State Council of Churches for this award. But I also want to be very clear from the start: this award belongs to so many more people than those of us who you see here tonight. 

When we started this walk, we were carrying the Flushing Remonstrance, a 368-year-old document that declared religious freedom before the Bill of Rights existed. But we quickly learned we weren't just carrying a historical artifact. We were carrying a living witness, one that connected us to every person along the route who is fighting for justice today.

This walk worked because it embodied something fundamentally anti-reactionary. In a world where we're expected to respond instantly to every crisis, to post and move on, we chose to move slowly. To walk 295 miles, to canoe 5 more. To take three weeks when we could have tweeted in three seconds. That slowness, that commitment to processing rather than just reacting, that was only possible because of community.

This award belongs to all of the people who made this walk possible.

It belongs to Kim, who at 81 years old, showed up from Maine with a backpack on her front and a backpack on her back, saying simply, "I heard about this and I had to do something."

It belongs to Diana and Stuart, who brought years of immigrant rights work to this journey, reminding us that we're not just walking for history, we're walking for people whose lives hang in the balance today.

It belongs to the 500 people who walked with us for a day, a week, or the full 300 miles, like Ian who has joined us here today. It belongs to the Quaker Meetings in Flushing, Brooklyn, Plainfield, Princeton, Southampton, Germantown, Chestnut Hill, Central Philadelphia, Springfield, Westtown, London Grove, Penn Hill, Little Falls, Stony Run, Patapsco, Sandy Spring, and Washington DC. To every Friend who opened their doors, fed us, housed us, and renewed our spirits when we were tired. To New York Quarterly Meeting, Brooklyn Monthly Meeting, and Germantown Monthly Meeting who provided witness grants and financial support. To Quaker organizations like American Friends Service Committee and Friends Committee on National Legislation, whose work inspires us and whose staff supported us as we navigated Capitol Hill.

Walking allowed us to truly connect. To listen, and to learn. In Plainfield, we heard from the immigrant community and their urgent call: no collaboration between police and ICE. In Highland Park, Pastor Seth showed us what mutual aid looks like in practice—buildings transformed into centers for migrant relief and empowerment. 

One moment stays with me. A younger guy, Kyle, read an article about the walk in the Associated Press. Kyle lives in the Philadelphia area and he happened to read the AP article right as we were passing through. Later that evening, Kyle showed up to the gate at Friends Center in Center City Philadelphia with a box of cashews and questions about Quaker witness and what we were trying to accomplish with the walk. Kyle cancelled his meetings the next morning, and walked with us as we left Philadelphia. Over 18 days I watched our actions snowball, encouraging others to act and show up. I watched what community can do when it moves together. When it moves with purpose. 

We're gathered here tonight because we are people of faith. And what's powerful about being people of faith is that our beliefs animate us to act, they call us toward justice, and they sustain us in trying times as we stand up to injustice.

I hope that our being here tonight, hearing these inspiring stories, can also serve as a reminder to challenge ourselves, and everyone here, to continue seeing and acting on the value of all people. As Friends, we recognize that there is divine light in each and every one of us. And recognition of that light demands action. 

The work being honored tonight is inspiring and we’re honored to be celebrated alongside such incredible leaders. We accept this award on behalf of everyone who made this walk possible. And we accept it as a challenge: to keep building the community networks that make radical action, peace, and justice possible.

We also invite you to think with us, to work with us, to organize with us, and to walk with us toward justice. Because change doesn't happen through individual heroism—it happens when we answer that call as a community, when our faith animates us to act, and when we walk together to make change.

Thank you.