Reflecting on 2025: Pastor Curtis’s Year-End Letter

2025 has been a revealing year.

A year that laid bare the fractures of our nation and tested the soul of our communities. We have witnessed mass shootings and mass displacement. Deportations and family separations. Rising costs that crush working families and wages that refuse to rise.

Political games played with human lives. Democratic norms strained, authoritarian impulses emboldened, and a dangerous call toward isolation over solidarity.

In the Central Valley, these realities are not abstract—they are lived. National agendas that cause harm have found local expression here. Yet, in living rooms and sanctuaries, around kitchen tables and in quiet one-on-one conversations, the people have spoken with unmistakable clarity. They are not confused. They are not undecided. They are awake. And they are saying, with one voice:

This cannot continue.

As we step toward 2026, we make a choice.

We choose dignity over disposability.

We choose liberation over fear.

We choose joy—not as denial, but as defiance.

We will continue to raise up leaders from among those closest to the pain, because wisdom is born in struggle and authority is forged in lived experience. We will keep building a coalition grounded in faith and disciplined in action—prepared to protect the vulnerable, confront injustice, and build the power required to transform our conditions. We have been struck, yes—but we are not defeated.

I am more certain than ever that faith-based community organizing is not optional in moments like these—it is essential. It is a safeguard for our freedom and a vessel for collective courage. This report bears witness to our work in 2025 and testifies that even in seasons of chaos, the people still rise. We are still standing. And beyond this moment, there is a horizon shaped not by despair, but by possibility.

We have listened long enough. The times may be hard, but they are not permanent. Scripture reminds us that change comes when people choose it—and we have chosen. Therefore, these times will not have the final word.

We offer deep gratitude to our funders, whose resources make this work possible; to our faith leaders, who ground us in moral truth; and to the community members, congregations, and lay leaders whose steadfast commitment to showing up, speaking truth to power, and loving their neighbors in action teaches us how to endure, resist, and bring forth justice in times such as these.