Oread Friends Meeting is involved with the Lawrence Coalition for Peace and Justice (LCPJ), Lawrence Community Shelter, Coalition for Homeless Concerns, Ecumenical Campus Ministries (ECM) at the University of Kansas, Justice Matters, Lawrence Area Clergy, Kansas Land Trust (KLT), and Lawrence Ecology Teams United in Sustainability (LET-US). The Meeting also supports a variety of other groups individually and through financial contributions from the Meeting.

Lawrence Coalition for Peace and Justice

The Lawrence Coalition for Peace and Justice (LCPJ) is dedicated to the propositions that violence begets more violence, that the forms of violence are social and economic as well as physical, and that the human spirit can reach its highest potential only in an atmosphere of peace, mutual respect, and generosity. A truly peaceful society must be a just society with equal rights, opportunity and fairness for all, and a commitment to the general well-being.

War is the antithesis of all these ideals and must be eradicated if the vision of a just and peaceful society is to become a reality.

The LCPJ has been working constantly for over a quarter of a century through its various educational and action programs to promote this vision.

Learn more at: http://lcpj.org/

Lawrence Community Shelter

The Lawrence Community Shelter is composed of many unique individuals and families from diverse backgrounds. Some are fighting with addictions or mental health issues. For some, this is the first time experiencing homelessness because they had nowhere else to go. The one thing they all have in common is that they are poor and turned to the Lawrence Community Shelter as a last resort.

At full capacity, Lawrence Community Shelter serves 125 men, women, and children each night. Each guest is engaged by caring, informed staff concerned with meeting the guest's specific needs and offering a partnership to develop a plan to find a path to a positive future. The path may include employment, counseling, locating a home, or entering a recovery program for substance abuse and/or mental illness treatment.

Learn more at: http://www.lawrenceshelter.org/

Coalition for Homeless Concerns

Coalition for Homeless Concerns (CHC) is a voice of the homeless community to the City and County Commissions and the Homeless Issues Advisory Committee (HIAC); advocate for people experiencing homelessness through public education events; educatating the larger public community on the issues of homelessness; monthly meetings for homeless individuals, agencies and the public; publishers of Change of Heart, a street paper by and for people experiencing homelessness. Change of Heart is the only street newspaper in Kansas.

Learn more at: http://coalitionforhomelessconcerns.com/

Ecumenical Campus Ministries

ECM recognizes that the university and Lawrence communities need welcoming and neutral spaces to cultivate open hearts, minds, and spirits; to carry out difficult dialogues that can help build bridges between different peoples, experiences, religions, and world views; and to build foundations of love and understanding that welcomes a call to compassion and justice while affirming an interdependence with each other and the earth.

Learn more at: http://ecmku.org/

Justice Matters

Justice Matters is an Interfaith organization made up of twenty-one religious congregations in Lawrence, Kansas. We have come together to move toward a city where justice rolls down like a mighty river. We work toward this vision as an expression of our faith and values of love, relationship, and justice. We lift up these "neighborly" values in contrast to a culture dominated by the pursuit of material consumption and individualism.

Learn more at: http://www.justicemattersinkansas.org/ 

Kansas Land Trust (KLT)

We are people coming together to protect our State's most precious natural resources. We cherish fresh air, healthy food, open space, wildlife habitat, and a future our kids can live in.  With the help of our members, we've preserved over 31,000 acres of treasured prairie, woodland, farmland, and ranchland forever.

Learn more at: http://www.klt.org/ 

Lawrence Ecological Teams United in Sustainability (LET-US)

Lawrence Ecological Teams United in Sustainability (LET-US) takes seriously our responsibility to Earth, our home, as a place where all creation flourishes. As an interfaith network in the Lawrence community, we endeavor to be faithful, relevant, and effective servants for educating and advocating Eco justice and Environmental sustainability.

Learn more at: https://lawrenceecologyteams.wordpress.com/ 

Find out more about those working on death penalty abolition in our region:

The Kansas Coalition Against the Death Penalty is a not-for-profit corporation organized for the purpose of promoting public education about capital punishment and disseminating information about the death penalty and the effects of executions.

The Death Penalty Information Center is a national non-profit organization serving the media and the public with analysis and information on issues concerning capital punishment. Founded in 1990, the Center promotes informed discussion of the death penalty by preparing in-depth reports, conducting briefings for journalists, and serving as a resource to those working on this issue. 

The Center on Wrongful Convictions (CWC) opened in 1998 and today receives approximately 200 inquiries a month from inmates around the country seeking legal representation. Center faculty and staff attorneys, in partnership with outside pro bono attorneys and CWC students, review these requests and represent imprisoned clients with claims of actual innocence. Although the Center focuses primarily on post-conviction cases, occasionally CWC attorneys serve as co-counsel with experienced trial lawyers working pro bono, in the retrials of cases that have been reversed and remanded.