[November 07, 2009] For the least, last and lost Tweet Nov 07, 2009 (The Gazette - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- Members of the faith and labor communities in Linn and Johnson counties are hoping to start a social justice group in Eastern Iowa modeled after the example of Saul Alinsky, father of contemporary community organizing. Former state Rep. Ro Foege, of Mount Vernon, and Paul Deaton, of Iowa City, are weighing community interest with hopes of forming an A Mid-Iowa Organizing Strategy, or AMOS, group in Eastern Iowa. AMOS started in Des Moines in 1996 as a faithbased group to promote community organizing and social justic issues. An affiliate of the national organization Industrial Area Foundation, it follows the models set out by community organizer and writer Saul Alinsky. He worked to improve living conditions for poor com munities and in AfricanAmerican "ghettos" in Chicago and New York City. The two men are working with Paul Turner, lead organizer of the 12-yearold AMOS group in Des Moines, to see what interest there is in forming a similar group here. In Des Moines the tackles such social issues as health care, welfare reform, affordable housing and homelessness. "I watch what they're doing and I want something like that here in Cedar Rapids," Foege said. "I know what can be done if people are interested." "What can be done" is getting people together and introducing them to public life, Turner said. "To me the biggest value of these projects is they are an opportunity and an avenue for people to have a public life and to learn how to become active citizens," he said. "We're all learning to work together with people different from ourselves." Much of the work of AMOS follows the group's iron rule: don't do for others what they can do for themselves. Simply put, Turner said, it's giving a voice to people who haven't yet been heard. "We pay special attention to the least and the last and the lost among us," Turner said. "The faith traditions in particular have a say in the kind of community we try to create -- what's happening to people in poverty, are we being mindful of what it's like to be a single mother or an ex-offender? We're supposed to remember those people." In Eastern Iowa Foege and Deaton are still working to see what interest there is in such a group and whether it would be feasible to start an organization for Linn and Johnson county residents. "The people that I've asked to come all have a strong interest in social justice," he said. "We want to sort out what social justice issues we should address and then work with them." -- Contact the writer: (319) 398-8288 or [email protected] To see more of The Gazette, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.gazetteonline.com. Copyright (c) 2009, The Gazette, Cedar Rapids, Iowa Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email [email protected], call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]