Documentaries on Faith Community Responses to Pandemic in a North Carolina City
BU alumnus Dr. Kendal Mobley (’04), Associate Professor of Religion and Coordinator of the Spiritual Life Center at Johnson C. Smith University (JCSU), is leading the effort to create a series of documentary videos called Crisis and Compassion, showing how diverse religious communities in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg region of North Carolina are responding to the pandemic by working with local service providers, local government, and other faith communities to meet the needs. Each episode is accompanied by a study guide. Three episodes have been released, with at least three more in the pipeline.
Mobley’s team includes JCSU students Exodus Moon and Iyanla Parsanlal, along with LeDayne McLeese Polaski, Executive Director of Mecklenburg Metropolitan Interfaith Network (MeckMIN). “Leading the Crisis and Compassion project has been exciting and rewarding,” said Mobley. “I’ve been honored to bear witness to the courage and devotion of people and organizations from diverse religious perspectives, and to offer them the chance to tell their own stories. In a very dark time, they offer an example that is enlightening, empowering, and hopeful. They show us the virtues and values that will carry us through this crisis: compassion, respect for human dignity, sacrificial love, humility, unity, and
cooperation.”
Crisis and Compassion is part of a larger project called Bridge Builders Charlotte. Led by Queens University’s Belk Chapel and funded by Interfaith Youth Core and the Gambrell Foundation, campus teams from Central Piedmont Community College, Davidson College, JCSU, University of North Carolina Charlotte, Queens University, and Wingate University are strengthening local efforts to help the Charlotte community recover from and respond to the COVID-19 pandemic.