Greetings:
Strong Towns: Exploring the Role of Religious Institutions in Community Development is a podcast that addresses how the Church has historically played a pivotal role in disrupting communities - primarily in the name of “development” and increasing their footprint in locations around the country. Often, their expansionist efforts result in taking land from the poor, and decimating socioeconomically marginalized communities. This is yet another instance.
Here in Mobile, Alabama, St. Ignatius Church, the richest Catholic parish in the state, is attacking what’s left of Sand Town. The pastor and parish board have grand plans for a massive cemetery in the heart of our community that would generate millions of dollars for their church. (If you don’t know much about Sand Town, please explore more on our website.)
For nearly two centuries, we have lived independently, free, and peacefully in our own beloved community, and we want to see it thrive. We have been generational stewards and showed good faith to St. Ignatius Church that encroached onto our settlement in the 1960’s. We have been neighbors, tithing parishioners, and tuition paying students at their school and church throughout the decades.
This plan for a cemetery development to the detriment of the people who reside in the community is not the way of Christ. This is not the way of a good neighbor. The truth crushed to the earth will rise again and the truth is, the proposed cemetery would dishonor the founders, descendants, and current residents of this historic area. Please click below to listen to this very enlightened podcast featuring a Catholic real estate developer, Chuck Marohn, and help us to save Sand Town by spreading the word.
Thank you,
The Sand Town Community Action Group Board of Directors
Note: In this episode, Chuck Marohn, real estate developer and founder of Strong Towns, was interviewed by “At The Table,” a podcast for church leaders interested in community-based ministry that contributes to the common good via mutual relationships, spiritual practice, simplicity and an awareness of church activities in communities.
Strong Towns: Exploring the Role of Religious Institutions in Community Development.
Click below, and please scroll down the Podcast Page to listen to the episode on the role of religious institutions in community development.
(Note: the episode begins about 4 minutes into the recording.)
Each year, the Places in Peril program calls public attention to a select number of Alabama's threatened historic and archaeological sites.
Sand Town is a historical, beautiful and serene residential area in the heart of Spring Hill, an affluent suburb of Mobile, AL. The oldest African American neighborhood in Spring Hill, Sand Town's boundaries are from Three - Mile Creek to just north of The Cedars and east to west from Dilston Street to Ziegler Boulevard.
Established before 1845, Sand Town predates the United States Civil War. Among its many ancient oak trees, lush, green grounds, magnolia trees, and azalea hedges, stands a culturally significant 145 year old American landmark: a continuously functional, quaint, brick church where residents hold services every Wednesday and Sunday. An adjacent cemetery commemorates the Sand Town community ancestors. They were former slaves and free Indigenous Black Americans who created this community together. It is still populated by the descendants of those proud and hard-working Americans. They are a people who autonomously maintain authority and ownership of a highly valued inheritance - the treasure of their homes and land.
Sand Town is the kind of place where neighbors care about and look out for each other because they have known each other their entire lives. The houses and yards are maintained and the area has remained virtually crime free over the centuries. That’s not by accident. The residents of Sand Town adhere to high values in the truest sense through self reliance, mutual respect, friendship, trust and loyalty. Educating others and preserving our rich history is paramount.
Whether you help through tax deductible monetary donations, volunteering your time, or spreading our mission through word-of-mouth, thank you. We couldn't accomplish our goals without the help of supporters like you. Thank you.
Sand Town
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