She’s Bringing The Voting Faith Back Home

FaithActs for Education, a Black-led community organizing nonprofit based in Bridgeport, will include New Haven in its fifth annual Faith Votes Campaign with a goal of activating 3,000 voters in this year’s elections.

FaithActs recently announced it will be expanding its voter education and turnout campaign into Hartford and New Haven for the first time.

“We want to be in the three big cities in the state. They have important legislative power,” FaithActs Executive Director Jamilah Prince-Stewart said.

Prince-Stewart said activating voters is about more than only registering people to voters. The Faith Votes Campaign will provide registered voters with voter guides, sample ballots, personalized voting reminders, and free rides to and from the poll. ​“Voter registration does not equate to voter turnout,” she said. The FaithActs team ask that voters commit to voting with the organization to help track voter registration, education, and turnout.

“We have to make elections hard for politicians and hold them accountable at reelection,” Prince-Stewart said. ​“Politicians go to churches when they want blind-faith votes but we are making our voters educated and active.”

Prince-Stewart, a New Haven native, was raised in a two-family home in Westville in which she lived with many immediate and extended family members.

Her mom, the first in her family to graduate college, worked two jobs seven days a week to put her through private St. Aedan’s parochial school and then Hopkins School. Prince-Stewart was the second person in her family to graduate from college. Graduating from Yale University in 2009.

Prince-Stewart’s family has a history of working at Yale University as dining room workers and custodians. ​“I was aware that this was the case because we all aren’t given opportunities in education,” she said. ​“That just lit a fire in me.” While in high school and college Prince-Stewart dedicated herself to activism revolving around education.

Prince-Stewart was a former dancer and swimmer before undergoing reconstructed hip surgery. It took Prince-Stewart a full year to learn to walk again around 12 years old. While in the 8th-grade Prince-Stewart wore a full body brace and then used a walker.

With a newfound passion for education, Prince-Stewart started tutoring third-graders during her gym period in the eighth grade. She continued tutoring in high school, branching out to working with students at nearby public schools. In college she tutored at an after-school program at the Dixwell-Yale Community Learning Center.

After college .Prince-Stewart knew she wanted to work in the field of education because ​“drastic changes needed to be made to the education system.”

After graduation, Prince-Stewart worked at the Hartford Youth Scholars Foundation, where she further recognized systemic issues facing Connecticut’s education system. She then dedicated herself to increasing the participation of the community and local leaders in Connecticut’s education reform movement as the director of community engagement at ConnCAN.

In 2014 Prince-Stewart took a leap of faith and left her job to join her mentor and FaithActs founder and senior advisor Pastor William McCullough. ​“It was completely an irrational decision, but faith without work is dead,” she said.

As the campaign continues amidst the pandemic, the team is adjusting its community organizing. Virtual commitment cards and voter guides are being sent to registered voters on the team’s interest list. Mailed voter guides will be sent to those who commit to voting. On July 25 the team will partner with Mt. Calvary Revival Center which will distribute groceries to residents, offer Covid-19 testing, and voter registration.

A virtual forum is in the works with each local running candidates that will be hosted for voters.

“My heart has been and always will be in New Haven,” she said. ​“Bridgeport’s issue is New Haven’s issue as is Hartford’s issue.”

FaithActs has raised $253,000 to use to directly support committed voters in Bridgeport, New Haven, and Hartford with financial issues due to Covid. An additional $58,000 was distributed to 58 churches throughout the three cities. Fourteen of which were in the greater New Haven area. 

“We’re dedicated to creating a culture of informed voting in New Haven,” she said.

FaithActs Partnering New Haven churches:

1. Pastor Philippe Andal, Community Baptist, 143 Shelton Ave,
2. Pastor Curtis Antrum, Abundant Harvest Outreach Ministries, 1579 State St,
3. Pastor Danny Bland, Mt. Calvary Revival Center, 392 Legion Ave.
4. Pastor Charles Brewer, Trinity Temple Church of God in Christ, 285 Dixwell Ave.
5. Bishop Theodore Brooks, Beulah Heights 1st Pentecostal Church, 782 Orchard St.
6. Pastor Jose Champagne, Hispanic Church of God and Prophecy, 90 Harper Ave.
7. Apostle Helen Cogdell, True Worship Church, 459 Greenwich Ave.
8. Pastor Steven Cousin, Bethel A.M.E Church, 255 Goffe St.
9. Pastor Donald Morris, Life Kingdom Outreach Ministries, 596 Winchester Ave.
10. Pastor James Newman, New Freedom Missionary Baptist, 280 Starr St.
11. Pastor Walter Oliver, Ebenezer Chapel, 50 Dwight St.
12. Pastor Corey Saulsbury, The Empowerment Christian Church, 79 Lawrence St.
13. Pastor Charles Simmons, Temple of Latter Rain, Inc., 1579 State St.
14. Pastor Kelcy Steele, Varick Memorial, 242 Dixwell Ave.
15. Pastor Roger Wilkins, Maranatha Ministries COGIC Inc, 5 Hazel St.