Philadelphia Yearly Meeting (PYM) participates on The Pennsylvania Council of Churches. This voluntary association of separate and autonomous Christian churches, within the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, seeks to manifest their fellowship (koinonia) with one another, to engage in common ministries of witness and service, and to advance towards the goal of visible unity.
This alliance supports our Philadelphia Yearly Meeting in connecting Friends with faith colleagues from many religious traditions. We also have joined with them in recognizing the unprecedented nature of the Covid-19 pandemic as described in a March 27th statement.
We share below a new Covid-19 letter of support the PA Council of Churches recently sent to Pennsylvania’s Governor Tom Wolf.
Pennsylvania Council of Churches
April 24, 2020
Governor Tom Wolf
508 Main Capitol Building Harrisburg, PA 17120
Dear Governor Wolf,
The Board of Directors of the Pennsylvania Council of Churches is pleased to express its appreciation for your efforts and the work of all members of your administration in managing the COVID-19 crisis in Pennsylvania. We believe that your administration’s efforts have helped to control the spread of the virus in Pennsylvania.
We especially want to recognize the calm and steady presence and voice of Dr. Rachel Levine. Her briefings have served to inform and reassure Pennsylvanians over the past few weeks, responding forthrightly and with tremendous composure to every question that comes her way.
We understand that your decision to shut down nonessential businesses has caused some pain for many of our most vulnerable low-income neighbors. While increases in unemployment are inevitable during a period of shutdown, we are grateful for actions by your administration to ensure that, among other things: low income households are protected from eviction or foreclosure; barriers to food assistance are being relaxed and/or lifted; and student loan borrowers are being granted a temporary reprieve on payments.
We understand that you have received considerable pressure from some businesses and individuals in our Commonwealth to reopen Pennsylvania sooner rather than later, and we are grateful that you have chosen a thoughtful and prudent path in response to this pressure. We support your stated approach for moving forward with reopening the state for business as usual. We agree that it must be data driven, relying on quantifiable measures to chart the course for reopening Pennsylvania in the coming weeks and months, and that reasonable guidance and recommendations are necessary to ensure that individuals, employers, and the health care communities understand what is expected. We support your assertion that access to adequate supplies of personal protective equipment and diagnostic testing are essential and must be in place before a comprehensive reopening of activities, and that an ongoing monitoring system must be in place to prevent further outbreaks or swiftly contain them if they do occur. We agree that protections must remain in place for our most vulnerable neighbors—such as those in places like nursing homes and prisons—throughout the reopening process, and we support ongoing limits on large gatherings until there can be reasonable assurance that Pennsylvanians can remain safe from preventable exposure.
Finally, we recognize that this crisis has laid bare the many injustices and inequities that exist in our present economic system, and we are pleased to note that you have recognized this as well in your plans to move forward. We support your goals of ensuring family-sustaining wages, paid sick leave, affordable and accessible child care, expanded workplace protections, protections for workers in the “gig economy” who have not traditionally had a safety net in the event of economic downturns, and debt relief for those who have felt crushed under the weight of student loans.
Again, many thanks for all that your administration has done to keep Pennsylvanians safe during this pandemic. We hold you, your administration, and all our elected officials in prayer for wisdom, strength, safety, and good health during this difficult time and always.
Our door is open. We are ready to meet with you to discuss how we can support your efforts to reopen what we believe can be a better, stronger Pennsylvania in the future.
Sincerely,
President
On behalf of the Board of Directors
