Site
Contents
 |
General Information about the Area Office
North Indiana Conference Office
South Indiana Conference Office
Prayer Guides
(Courtesy of the NIC Prayer Team)
Area United Methodist
Foundation
For resources to assist your congregation in welcoming guests,
click here
Seashore District Volunteer Center VIM project -- Completed
Hoosier United Methodist News Archives
| Hoosier United Methodists together |
March 2005 |
Parker-Sawyers named director of new Indiana State Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives
INDIANAPOLIS - Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels has named an Indianapolis community service leader of the Polis Center as his first director for the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives.
Paula Parker-Sawyers will lead the state's effort to strengthen volunteerism and community service and to increase partnering opportunities with faith-based organizations.
While Indiana has had FaithWorks, a state office intended to help religious groups compete for social-services contracts, Daniels said the new office will be more effective.
"We do know that in areas like drug and other addictions, rehabilitation and prison settings, faith-based programs have proven success records," he told reporters.
The former Indianapolis-Marion City-County Council member is the first black woman named to a top position in Daniels' administration. According to press reports, she is a Baptist.
"Hoosiers are helpers, and their spirit of volunteerism and community service is second to none. We are a state full of people who pitch in to get things done, and Paula will harness that activity to create a statewide structure that encourages sharing of the best practices and cultivates more volunteer opportunities," said the governor.
Daniels signed an executive order in January to create the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, which will have a direct relationship with his office. The previous activities of FaithWorks Indiana and the Commission on Volunteerism and Community Service are being consolidated into this new initiative. The office will serve as a link for Hoosiers to learn about opportunities to participate in state government and to share information with more people about successful faith-based and community-based programs. Parker-Sawyers became director of this new office on Feb. 11.
She told news reporters that she will "make sure we protect the separation between church and state, yet at the same time recognize Hoosiers have in their hearts the sense of wanting to help each other, and it's not limited to outside the church."
Parker-Sawyers has served as the associate director of the Polis Center at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) since September 2001. There, she directed the Spirit and Place Festival, an annual citywide collaboration of more than 150 community organizations highlighting the humanities, arts and religious traditions in central Indiana.
Prior to her work at the Polis Center, she was the director of a national pilot known as the Friendly Access Program at the Health and Hospital Corporation of Marion County. She also held multiple positions at IUPUI, including special assistant to the IUPUI chancellor, director of the Office of Neighborhood Resources and the director of Leadership Works.
Through these efforts she has worked to improve relationships between the campus and nearby neighborhood residents, helped create a diversity cabinet involving students, faculty and staff and trained more than 600 people in six cities in Indiana and Michigan about the responsibilities of a non-profit board of directors.
"We have a strong history of volunteerism in Indiana, and I'll work under the governor's direction to create more opportunity to impact and improve volunteerism," said Parker-Sawyers. "Community activism and volunteerism is a way of life for many and we can use their efforts to improve our communities."
Parker-Sawyers served on the council from 1976 to 1983 and as deputy mayor for Mayor William Hudnut from 1989 to 1991. She is a lifelong resident of Indianapolis and is married with three children.
Last updated on 25 Apr 2008