Bainbridge Island North Kitsap Interfaith Council 

IFC has a close, supportive connection with Helpline House. We help to seek volunteers and donations for many Helpline services to those in need.  Some ways you can help include:

• Register with the Chilly Hilly bike ride each February;
• Donate to the annual Helpline House Plant Sale each April;
• Take part in the golf tournament each summer;
• Contribute to Project Backpack at the end of each summer;
• Contribute to Project Wishbone each November;
• Assist the Holiday House each December;
• Participate in the community's many Food Drives;
• Assist in the Clothing Connection shop, the Food Bank, or the Helpline Desk.

Please join this community effort to help bring comfort and joy to many of our neighbors who are struggling to meet basic needs. Click here for more details.

We value and support the IVCs mission and efforts to help persons of all ages and persuasions maintain dignity and quality of life and to bring together persons of various faiths and good will to serve those in need in the community. For more information, call (206) 842-4441 Learn how you can help.

IFC supports and assists many local activities and services for young people. Check out our Youth page for descriptions, or find out more about how you can help.

The first Japanese-Americans forcibly taken to internment camps in WWII came from Bainbridge Island. To honor and remember them and this tragic event, the Bainbridge Island Japanese American Community, in partnership with local and national governmental leaders, the Timber Framers Guild, the IFC, and many other volunteers, are creating a national Bainbridge Island Japanese American Memorial at the site of the old Eagledale Ferry landing.

IFC is exploring ways in which faith communities and their members can foster understanding and friendship with members of local Native American Tribes.

Return of land to Suquamish Tribe?  IFC has written a letter to State officials seeking a solution for the future of OldMan House State Park in Suquamish that respects the sacredness of this land to the Suquamish people and helps to heal past wrongs to the Tribe and divisions in the community.  Find out more.
Learn how you can help.

Find out about the IFC's statement supporting the goals and work of the Kitsap County Council for Human Rights.
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Sustainable Bainbridge was formed in 2006 to support cooperation and collaboration among a broad-based network of local organizations, businesses, government and individuals to protect and strengthen our community's social, environmental, and economic sustainability for current and future generations.

To get involved, click here.

Although Bainbridge Island often is characterized as an affluent community, there is poverty here; there is homelessness; there are people who don’t always have enough to eat; and there are people who work hard yet have little money left after paying rent.

At the same time, it should be understood that many needs associated with human services are unrelated to income. The availability of, and access to, human services is important to all people, regardless of income, family structure, age or cultural background.

The Health, Housing and Human Services Council has the unique responsibility for implementing the City of Bainbridge Island’s Human Services Element (HSE) of the Comprehensive Plan.

By officially adopting the Human Services Element, our community boldly says that the well-being, health and basic human dignity of all of our citizens is as equally important as land use planning, improving roads or providing public safety services.

During the spring and summer, please donate flowers from your garden to the Interfaith Volunteer Caregivers, who arrange and deliver them to care receivers who need emotional support. Please take your freshly cut flowers to the front doors of Eagle Harbor Congregational Church and place them in the buckets there.  

To:  Mayor Darlene Kordonowy; Bainbridge Island City Council; Dr. Ken Crawford, Superintendent, Bainbridge Island School District; School Board, Bainbridge Island School District

February 26, 2008 

The recent act of vandalism at Blakely Elementary School is of great concern to us.  It contained not only ugly smears of school employees, but antisemitic slurs as well – “Kike,” “Jesus Hates Jews,” a figure labeled “Jew” hanging from a hangman’s noose.

The school staff and the Bainbridge Police Department responded quickly and sensitively, and we are very grateful to them for having done so.

But we remain concerned.  This was not a one-time event, but rather the latest in a series of incidents of bigotry and prejudice that have occurred on the Island in recent years.  In August, 2001, vandals desecrated tombstones at Port Blakely Cemetery; there has been racist graffiti at the Filipino-American Hall; developmentally disabled students in our schools have had to endure taunts and harassment.  Additionally, our community still bears the all-too-recent memory of watching hundred of local Japanese-Americans being deported from the Island at bayonet-point during World War II.

We know, of course, that the majority of our fellow Bainbridge residents find these acts abhorrent.  But bigotry continues to raise its ugly head here, anyway.  No longer can we dismiss these events as isolated incidents or as mere childhood pranks.   There is clearly a pattern of hurtful prejudice here, and it is time that we begin taking it seriously.

Of course, there is no easy fix to such ugly behavior.  But the fact that the problems are complex is no excuse to ignore them.  We call upon the Bainbridge community – particularly, but not only, its schools – to take positive and purposeful action on behalf of cultural and religious diversity on Bainbridge Island, and on behalf of respect for the various groups whose presence so deeply enriches our community.  Such steps might include community-wide diversity activities, diversity-awareness programs in our schools, and other activities, too. We are eager to work in partnership with you in implementing these initiatives.

Again, we know that most of us on the Island treasure the diversity of our community and abhor incidents such as the recent one at Blakely Elementary school.  But this most recent event should remind us that values such as respect and dignity don’t prevail on their own – we need to work to make them real. We call upon you to undertake this noble task, and we pledge to work with you to achieve it.

We thank you in advance or your efforts on behalf of respect and diversity on Bainbridge Island.

Sincerely,

Rabbi Mark Glickman, Congregation Kol Shalom

Eileen Hershberg, President, Congregation Kol Shalom,

Rev. Dr. Dee Eisenhauer, Eagle Harbor Congregational Church

Janette Ahrndt, President, Bainbridge Island/North Kitsap Interfaith Council

Bishop Brad Hepworth, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Bainbridge Island Ward

Other Organizations and Leaders