This week we hold up an important segment of our Social Justice Team – the over 50 Eliot members and friends who were trained to collect signatures for the amendment to be placed on a ballot for Missouri voters to decide the future of women’s health rights in our state. So far Eliot volunteers have collected 1,200 signatures and we are not yet finished! 

Some of the Eliot trained volunteers just wanted to make sure their family and close friends signed; some have been going to numerous events across the region and spending hours collecting hundreds of signatures (Liz and Yvonne, pictured on the left and right, knocked on doors with the campaign in St. Charles); others have gone to outlying counties to collect. It has been a great outreach event for Eliot Chapel. We trained around 20 petition collectors one Sunday and none of them were Eliot members. We had a promotional event on April 9 in the evening that filled the sanctuary, yet only about five of the attendees were from Eliot. So Eliot Chapel made a difference in this statewide push to extend democracy, and we also put Eliot Chapel on the map for many people who previously had not heard of us!

In perfect Eliot style, this outreach involved a previous member who was brought back into the fold: Lisa Ward, our notary.

We needed a notary for this whole thing to work. Lisa and her family used to be members of Eliot, and her kids grew up here. She has been at Eliot every Sunday since February 11, from 9:30 until the last petition is notarized, sometimes after 1:00 pm! What a trouper!