Sunny Hamrick

Kansas City, MO

I’m from Jerusalem Farm. We’re a local [laughing] Thank you. Thank you all. You all are wonderful just for being here. Thank you, sister for being here and bringing all this love to Kansas City. We appreciate it. It just affirms all of the good works that everyone’s trying to do here. One of the issues that we tend to focus on is home repair for people of low income…

Sr. Simone (off camera): Home repair?

Hamrick: Home repair. But specifically, the bullet point would be systems that divide instead of unite. Specially…The specific example is the housing code violations. It’s something we are very close to here in this city because we see how what is supposed to be a punishment or a system to catch absentee-owners who are abusing renters has very much turned to an attack on the poor, and a separation of neighbors from neighbors. In Pope Francis’ new encyclical, “care for our common home,” he says. One of his bullet points is that nothing is indifferent to us. Nothing is indifferent to us, meaning everything is our responsibility.

Sr. Simone (off camera): Amen.

Hamrick: So, it’s not your responsibility to call the city on your neighbor for their gutter hanging. It’s your responsibility to go to their door and to ask them what their needs are and to be their loving neighbor.