Celebrating 125 Years

Inter-Faith Ministries is celebrating 125 years as an organization committed to bringing local people of different faiths together to promote understanding, relieve misery and reconcile the estranged.

Inter-Faith Ministries began as the Wichita Ministerial Alliance in 1885, when the leaders of several Protestant churches decided to band together as people of faith, working to address basic human needs in the young settlement town. By the 1920s, the group found itself at a crossroads – ready to take on more mission work but sorely in need of money to do so. At that time, our organization consisted of 50 Protestant churches working together to promote social justice in the civic arena by advocating for voting rights for women, restrictions on child labor, social services for Mexican rail workers, and the addition of a YMCA branch to serve black citizens.

• In the 1930s, the Wichita Council of Churches extended partnerships to Jewish, Catholic and Eastern Orthodox congregations, publicly taking a stand against the Nazis years before America’s entry into the World War II.

• In the 1940s, the Council led a local “Wheat for Relief” program to prevent famine in post-war Europe, sending thousands of pounds of grain and clothing to relieve our suffering allies.

• In the 1950s and ‘60s, the Council continued international relief efforts, helping to settle in Wichita refugees from the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and the Cuban Revolution of 1959, and also providing relief to victims of earthquakes and floods in Chile following the Valdivia earthquake in 1960. At home, the council advocated for civil rights for black Americans and worked on behalf of Native Americans to establish the Indian Services Center. 

• In the 1970s, relationships were established with Baha’i, Buddhist, Hindu and Muslim congregations, prompting the change to our current name, Inter-Faith Ministries of Wichita. It was during this decade that we took over Operation Holiday, a tradition that we continue today, providing food, clothes and toys to thousands of Wichita families at Christmas. The ‘70s was also the decade when we laid the groundwork to provide housing to the homeless, a problem that emerged in the wake of the Vietnam War and a national trend toward deinstitutionalizing the mentally ill.

• The Inter-Faith Inn for the homeless opened in 1985; the TiWiConi Safe Haven for the mentally disabled, followed in 1997; the Inter-Faith Villa followed in 2002 and Inter-Faith Villa Courts in 2008, both providing low-cost housing and wrap-around support services to the homeless. Today these shelters serve thousands of people every year.

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Call Inter-Faith Ministries at 316-264-9303 for more information.

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