Interviewed by Roberta Oster, VICPP communications director

SUMMARY: Conversation with Sheila Herlihy Hennessee about the week-long Interfaith Justice Revival Tour through southwest Virginia from July 30-August 2, 2025. Sheila and the VICPP team organized the tour in partnership with Daniel Rezai, attorney at Virginia Poverty Law Center and Karen Jones, director of administration at the NAACP Virginia State Conference. They drove over 700 miles from Richmond to Lynchburg, Roanoke, Christiansburg, Wytheville, Wise County, Bristol, Independence, Floyd and Danville. Taking inspiration from old-school religious gatherings, faith leaders from different traditions, and community members spoke about the integral ties between faith and justice and the importance of civic engagement in anticipation of the November election. 

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Review Interview Transcript

(edited for clarity)

ROBERTA: Sheila, welcome back from your trip. Can you tell us where you went and what it was about?  

SHEILA: It was the first time we’ve done something like this. And it was through the western half of Virginia. On the map, our offices here in Richmond, but we’re looking at West. So we started in Lynchburg on Sunday, Roanoke on Monday, Christiansburg Tuesday, Norton, Adams, Wise County on Wednesday. Thursday, we headed up Addington and Bristol and then Friday we went to Independence, we went to Floyd and finally wrapped up in Danville on Saturday. So, it was a long trip, like 700 plus miles, through the mountains, through the beautiful, beautiful landscape of Southwestern Virginia. It was incredible. 

ROBERTA: Tell us about your trip. 

SHEILA: This was a weeklong tour of the western half of Virginia. We called it an Interfaith Justice Revival, Virginia Interfaith Center for Public Policy, us at VICPP, organized it, but we worked in collaboration with the Virginia Poverty Law Center, the Virginia NAACP with other partners like Virginia Organizing and the Justice Advocates of Roanoke and New River Valley.  

All of these groups are phenomenal and justice-oriented and really understand the call that is intrinsic to all our faiths to care for neighbor and to do justice on a systemic level. This idea came from actually a couple years back. I’ve been at Virginia Interfaith now for four years, but I’ve been thinking for a while about this idea of revival and getting back to the roots of our faith. Really understanding faith not as a source of hierarchy or Christian nationalism or holier than thou, but faith as a call to care for our neighbor. To me, that’s a centerpiece of my belief and the beliefs of a lot of the people I see through the VICPP. So I’ve been contemplating how to phrase this and how to share this with our network.  
 
And then this January of 2025 we co-hosted a tenant Day of Action with a bunch of other organizations that lobby in support of affordable homes. And at this January Advocacy Day for Tenant Day of Action myself and Daniel Rezai, one of the lawyers with Virginia Poverty Law Center, were supposed to shepherd a group from Southwest Virginia. Unfortunately, the folks who had registered ended up cancelling. And Daniel and I were talking about how, you know, it’s a six-hour trip, that’s really intimidating. And a lot of folks, especially from West of the Blue Ridge, might not feel they are seen by their legislators in Richmond, so why would folks waste their time coming out and over the holidays?  

Daniel had been listening to Pete Seeger and reading some of the Beatitudes and he said, ‘you know, people of faith really need to be doing more here and people in southwestern Virginia need to know who our organizations are.’ And I said, be still my beating heart. That is my day job.’ So, the two of us started brainstorming because VICPP has collaborated so much over the years with the NAACP, we also brought in Karen Jones from their statewide conference and we were able to plan 9 events in seven days.  

ROBERTA: What was the essence these gatherings?  

SHEILA: The gatherings were different, but each of the gatherings was about three things. First, building relationships, letting people in the local community know who VICPP is, who VPLC is, who NAACP is, and letting folks get to know each other. Second, and to me, the most important was revitalizing folks, helping people understand the connection between faith and justice, between the desire to care for neighbor and the work of advocacy that we do here at the state level. And then third, just giving a next step and a step forward as people are feeling overwhelmed in our current political climate, to really give people the opportunity to say, ‘there is still hope, there are still people working for goodness together, and we are stronger together than we are alone.’ 

ROBERTA: And how significant is the civic engagement element of this trip?   

SHEILA: Virginia has elections every single year, and 2025 is a big one, we’ve got the governor, the lieutenant governor, the attorney general all on the ballot, and then all 100 districts in the House of Delegates. So every single person in Virginia has multiple races they’re voting for. Some even have local elections on the ballot this year. Virginia Interfaith, one of our core foundational values is civic engagement, and that means getting people out to vote, register, increasing voter registration and turn out. It also means increasing voter education, making sure people know who’s on the ballot and who stands for what values and are making choices so that voters can make choices based on those values. 

And civic engagement carries beyond Election Day. That’s when we meet with our elected officials throughout the year so that they continue to represent our values. We hold them accountable to ensuring that their constituents’ voices are heard at the Capitol. So helping folks understand the elections that are coming and engage both as individuals and as faith communities in this work of civic engagement was another piece of the journey as well.  

ROBERTA: What the 100% voting congregation mission? Because we saw those beautiful posters everywhere. 

SHEILA:  VICPP has this initiative called 100% Voting Congregations and this is when a faith community makes a commitment that they will encourage all of their members who are eligible to go and vote. Faith communities are going to share ways to vote, timelines, registration, information about the candidates, and put up this giant 7-foot banner that the VICPP sends to them as a reminder to both members and the broader community that Election Day is coming.  

ROBERTA: What does the banner say?  
 
SHEILA: The banner says we’re voting 100% November 4th. This year it says November 4th. In previous years it’s a different number. So this giant banner says the date of the election and reminds members that they are called to vote for hundred percent voting congregations, it’s a way to live into that call of putting justice and putting their values into practice and public life by participating in elections.  

ROBERTA: So back to your revival, I know that was one of the projects that was kind of embedded in the work that you were doing. What was the for you as an organizer and a leader in this organization, what was the spiritual connection for you with this effort?  
 
SHEILA: I mean to me this is why I do the work at VICPP. My primary motivation has always been, I want to live my faith as visibly and authentically as possible. And it was really lovely to me, because I’ve been doing interfaith work for more than a decade. And I know the scripture and I know the prophets and I know the values that cross from Buddhism to Islam to Christianity to Judaism to the Unitarian Universalist tradition. All of these groups have such a clear call to take care of their neighbors. But that’s something that can get forgotten and can fall by the wayside. For me, my faith is my motivating factor, and it’s also just this lovely opportunity to connect with other people in the broader community, to share our mutual values and to build each other up. To really express how we take this from the quiet seat in a particular building on a particular day of the week out into the general public, like that’s just so powerful to me.  

ROBERTA: I see that you’re almost like in a glow from coming back to it from a trip like this. If you had to give me like a couple of highlights, or you can list them.  

SHEILA: One beautiful moment was on Monday night, our revival we heard from 5 different faith traditions. And there was a moment when the Rabbi Stein, who was representing the Jewish community in Roanoke, was shaking hands with the leader from the Islamic community, Mr. Salim and they just like had so much mutual respect for each other and supporting each other. That was lovely. Honestly, one of my favorite moments was down in Norton and Wise County, which is one of the farthest west counties in Virginia. We had talked about doing the gathering so far away and so few people know us. One person had said, my faith community would love to host you, but then her mom got sick and the pastor broke a leg and we said, ‘OK, we’re not gonna worry about it being in a church, we’re going to meet at a coffee shop.’ 

At that coffee shop, we had six people come and they weren’t just random passers by. Each of them was an organizer in their own right. All of them were excited to connect with Virginia Interfaith. It was so inspiring. And I think there was this give and take between us because one of the women said, ‘look, I’ve never seen somebody come out to Wise County.’ And I was like, ‘First of all, I’m sorry, we should do this more. But second of all, we’re here now and we want to come back.’ Those kind of relationship moments were just amazing.  

ROBERTA: And what was it like for you to sit in the in the audience or sit in the pews or whatever room you were in and see sometimes hundreds of people, sometimes smaller groups, sometimes larger groups, but hundreds of people coming together. 

SHEILA:  So inspiring, so lovely for people to be in the same room to, for people to be connecting across surprising, for people to be connecting, even if they may not have met previously, they’re all here, which means they have at least some common interests. So then, you know, to see those relationships form was lovely. 

ROBERTA: So this was clearly a success. 

SHEILA: Without a doubt, we’re going to do more. 

ROBERTA: Are you thinking about planning one for next summer? And are there any lessons that you learned or things that surprised you or is there one that or two that?  
 
SHEILA: You don’t want like, just my spreadsheet with the choir songs in the correct order. That’s a lesson learned lesson. I think the two biggest lessons are, one, you’re not alone. There is hope. There are people making these connections, wanting to do good work. You can connect with them. And then two, as I said in a lot of our events, we are stronger together than we are alone. So when you join a group like VICPP, when you push and push and push an e-mail, an e-mail your legislator to really stand up for those values, that doesn’t go into a void. When we work together, we can really make concrete change happen and that was something that was just such a lovely thing to see this week and to connect with this week.  

ROBERTA: Is there anything you’d like to add? Thank you.  

SHEILA: Go to the mountains.