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FAN director committed to advocate for the vulnerable

Faith Action Network’s (FAN) executive director, Joyce del Rosario, appreciates her role as an opportunity to work on behalf of oppressed people.

Joyce del Rosario is the new executive director at FAN.

FAN is Washington’s state-wide, multifaith, nonprofit through which thousands of people and more than 160 faith communities—including many PNC-UCC congregations—partner to work for the common good.

“FAN organizes people to become powerful voices of faith and conscience advocating for a more just, peaceful and sustainable world,” she said. “It calls people to contact elected officials to advocate for a just, sustainable world.”

In Seattle, she and her extended Filipino family were active with United Methodist congregations and Filipino activities, culture and issues.

Joyce had expected to be a journalist when she graduated in 1996 from the University of Washington. She has since used her communication studies to do speaking related to ministry and nonprofits.

In 2000, she earned a master of divinity at Princeton Seminary, feeling called to ministry in the community.

Returning to Seattle, Joyce worked with World Vision’s domestic youth program and Young Life’s urban training in the Beacon Hill area. She connected with the interfaith community and Filipino churches.

When funding ended in 2006, Joyce went to Daly City, Calif., to do outreach with youth in a community that was more than 50 percent Filipino. While serving as a public school counselor, she also worked weekends with young mothers. That led her to heading New Creation Homes,  a program supported by Silicon Valley churches that provided a home and 24/7 care for mothers aged 15 to 22 years.

Joyce learned of the discrepancy between those who could afford to live in the area and those who had little.

After earning a doctoral degree in intercultural studies at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, she continued to seek ways to bring together privileged and vulnerable folk, and to advocate for and with vulnerable people.

From 2019 to 2022, she taught Christian practice at Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, training students to enter nonprofit or church jobs.

In 2022, she returned to Seattle as director of multi-ethnic programs at Seattle Pacific University.

Since beginning at FAN in November 2024, she has met with people in different faith communities and congregations, connecting with rich and poor. She also discovered her family was involved with FAN advocacy.

Joyce is one of four full-time staff along with Kristin Ang, the policy engagement director, Elizabeth Dickinson, partnership coordinator and Blake Alford, operations coordinator. Other staff are Jess Ingman, North Central Washington regional organizer, and Brianna Dilts, Eastern Washington regional organizer.

Joyce seeks to expand funding to increase the staff and their hours so they can better mobilize our faith communities for just action.

“FAN has a stable base,” she said.

Joyce invites people from different cultures around the state to work together across culture and geography.

With her interest in youth, she seeks to inspire high school- and college-aged students to mobilize their passions to work toward justice.

From her study of scriptures, she believes that” God has a special love and compassion for the poor, the vulnerable and the oppressed,” said Joyce, who, as a brown Filipino woman, is aware of the vulnerabilities people in her own family experience.

She believes faith gives people strength to stand against injustices and FAN is equipped to answer harmful, violent actions the most vulnerable face.

Joyce invites those in FAN to realize that “as we take action, we need to have faith that we, as the beloved community, can resist and create change for the common good,” she said, inviting FAN partners to help “educate our faith communities about local and state initiatives.”

During January, FAN announced the legislative priorities they shaped along with their coalition partners, statewide network, the FAN policy committee and the FAN governing board.

Those priorities include advocating for and implementing policies that advance shared values grounded in faith and spirituality. Those values are belonging and human dignity, justice and equity, interconnectedness, collaboration and pluralism.

The agenda calls for strengthening climate justice and environmental stewardship; advancing immigrant and refugee rights; fostering community safety, democracy and civil rights; increasing safe affordable housing and preventing homelessness and expanding access to health care.

As the Washington State Legislature has been in session, Kristin has been in Olympia lobbying and others in FAN have followed the session to inform people around the state of the bills proposed, how they have been revised, what ones have passed out of committees and when to phone or email legislative representatives to ask them to vote “pro” or “con” on the bills.

For information, call 206-624-9790, email joyce@fanwa.org or visit fanwa.org.

 

Pacific Northwest Conference United Church News Copyright © April 2025

 

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