‘Memphis Miracle’: MIFA celebrates 50 years of service
Julia Allen, a 93-year-old lifelong Memphian, closed her eyes and clasped the hands of those beside her beneath a tent near a bed of sun-drenched chrysanthemums on Vance Avenue.
She bowed her head in prayer, as members of the Christian, Jewish, Muslim and Buddhist faiths gave thanks to the volunteers like her who helped the Metropolitan Inter-Faith Association become a critical Memphis institution addressing the needs of seniors and families in crisis and uniting neighbors through service.
“Today we honor those brave, passionate, determined heroes who made the Metropolitan Inter-Faith Association a reality,” Brown Missionary Baptist Church Pastor Bartholomew Orr said at the recent event celebrating MIFA’s legacy. “Those who nurtured it through its fragile early years, those who anchored it and made it thrive, those who continue to guide it through challenging and uncertain times.”
The agency was founded on Sept. 15, 1968 — 50 years ago — growing out of the tragedy and trauma of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Memphis. A group of 30 church leaders and laity from various congregations joined forces to support interracial dialogue and understanding, combat racism, poverty and injustice, and stimulate positive change in the divided city. The group’s beginnings were a struggle. “We are now in an age when vigorous support for social action has become standard among people of faith, but in 1968, especially in the South, this was often considered a radical, even dangerous idea,” said Linda Marks, who leads community outreach for the organization.
With a lack of both funding and community support, MIFA nearly collapsed in 1971, Marks said. But two new leaders, Gid Smith and Bob Dempsey, reinvented the group as a direct action service organization, and in 1974, members of Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA) started essential work for the agency. Their vision led to programs such as Meals on Wheels.
MIFA became known as the “Memphis Miracle,” Marks said, both for emerging through interfaith and interracial cooperation at a time when it was rare and for going on to thrive for decades.
The group’s early VISTA volunteers included Allen and Barbara Wilson, who are now neighbors at a retirement community in Memphis.
Wilson’s first work with MIFA was delivering meals to seniors at a Downtown Memphis high rise. She and a partner would pack up food and drinks in hot and cold containers, drive out, carry the food inside and ring the doorbell. Usually, the resident would be waiting, Wilson said.
“They welcome having someone come by everyday,” Wilson, now 97, said on a recent morning after finishing an exercise class and settling into a seat in the manor’s music room.
In addition to making sure the residents got a nutritious meal, they would chat about the weather and their children. If the resident was having a problem, the volunteers would try to connect them with a solution. Volunteers also often brought dog food to feed residents’ pets.
Wilson describes the impact of MIFA as “immense” and proof that “people of all religions and non-religion could work together for the common good.”
Allen was the organization’s bookkeeper and typist, who also published a newsletter and recruited volunteers.
To her, service work has been “like a fever” that changes one’s life and makes people focus beyond themselves.
“It opened my eyes to what a person could do,” she said.
The work helped Allen to overcome her own shyness, and today, she often reaches out to anyone at a gathering who looks uncomfortable.
“I think it made me a more caring person, certainly,” she said.
MIFA today offers several programs for seniors and families, including Meals on Wheels, a companionship program, food pantry assistance, emergency shelter placement, rapid rehousing and a homeless hotline.
For its 50th birthday, the organization has packed backpacks for school children, cultivated community gardens, served meals and worked on neighborhood clean-up projects. A memorial marker was unveiled Friday at its headquarters on Vance Avenue, and a gala celebration is planned for Oct. 11.
“MIFA’s original and ongoing purpose is to help build a healthy, thriving community,” Marks said. “The core value which that endeavor requires is love. Love of the best we can do and love of the best we can find in each other. This is MIFA’s way of helping to build a city of good abode. Good abode for all.”