LDS chapters turn outward to fight infant mortality and help immigrants

The Second Ward Choir in Hyde Park is not your typical Latter-day Saint choir.

First, clapping is often heard – during and after the song. Second, most of its members do not belong to Chicago’s Hyde Park 2nd Ward. In fact, they are not even members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Some are Pentecostal, some are Baptist, and some are Seventh-day Adventist.

That’s by design, said choir leader Randy Hulme. Under the leadership of the current ward bishop, the goal became to create a choir that reflected and served the larger community.

With a little help from Facebook advertising, we made it happen. Today, the choir regularly sings for Latter-day Saint and non-Latter-day Saint audiences, including at other churches in the city. When they’re not performing, choir members share daily uplifting messages via a group text message chain, throw each other birthday parties, and help other choir members with car maintenance and job searches.

“The choir is just one part of a larger effort,” Hulme said, led by local Latter-day Saint leaders to bring the congregation and its facilities outdoors, creating a vibrant community center open to all.

In doing so, the congregation joins a growing list of other Latter-day Saint facilities that, beyond the occasional blood or food drive, find ways to meet the specific needs of their communities through ongoing assistance.

Some efforts are more grassroots; others are initiated from above. But the doubling of church meetinghouses as Places to learn Englishas in Utah, or immigration reception centerslike Arizona and Nevada, it operates solely with the support of members and missionaries living and serving in those areas.

Chicago: “Bringing People Closer to Christ” Through Yoga and Child Care

Other Chicago ward gatherings include morning yoga taught by the president of the Women’s Relief Society, a summer camp for immigrant children supported by the church’s youth, and an annual Halloween haunted house that has averaged 5,000 visitors over the past few years.

“I’ve never been to a church building and had no one there,” said Alyssa Calder Hulme, Randy’s wife, “except when we were the first ones to get there for yoga around 5 a.m.”

On Sundays, instead of rushing out the door as soon as church meetings end, ward members gather – on the grass if it’s nice outside, indoors when it’s not – and share a meal prepared by volunteers, while children run around and adults chat.

A visit on Saturday may discover another faith group celebrating the holiday at the Latter-day Saint building. This is because the meetinghouse has become a space where immigrant communities can organize their own events.

At each of these social events, leaders enforce a strict prohibition on proselytizing, even for missionaries.

Yet the area became a hotbed of missionary activity, with so many new converts arriving each week that, Alyssa said, lay leaders stopped trying to confirm them in sacrament meeting. Around 2019, the district split, creating two congregations in Hyde Park. The one Hulmes attends is “already bursting at the seams” with all the new additions, according to Randy.

“We do some unusual things,” Alyssa said, “but it brings people closer to Christ and we support people’s basic needs for food, community and child care.”

Memphis: Collaborative Effort Against Infant Mortality

For almost two years, Latter-day Saints in Memphis, Tennessee, have been working with the city’s NAACP chapter to reduce the infant mortality rate in the area. historically one of the highest in the countryusing the so-called program MojeBaby4Me.

The ongoing project, free to the general public and aimed at new and expectant parents, began with a conversation between regional NAACP and Latter-day Saint leaders. It has since evolved into an ongoing service supported by Latter-day Saint volunteers with experience in medicine, social work, and related fields.

Other church members, including young people, joined in the effort, providing meals and child care to parents attending classes on newborn nutrition and safety. Some sew blankets and mosquito nets, others equip future parents with baby clothes, cots, car seats and other necessary things.

Last December, the program hosted a district-hosted Christmas party where participants came together to provide food, decorations and gifts.

“Our goal was to wrap one gift for each child,” said Joell Archibald, a missionary who helped start the program with her husband, Lynn. “But many received several.”

The impact is clear and growing. During the 18 months of the Archibalds’ involvement, class sizes increased from zero to 20 or more. In total, they worked with 100 women during their tenure and witnessed the birth of 21 healthy, full-term babies.

Further proof of their success: the program is expanding to Nashville and Little Rock, Arkansas.

At the same time, having an ever-growing and impactful project to rally around gave area Latter-day Saints a common cause.

One particularly moving experience for Lynn occurred after he and Joell completed a MyBaby4Me presentation to the local chapter about the program’s progress and needs.

Lynn, touched by the memory, said a man from the audience approached the couple and told them he couldn’t come often, but during the presentation he received a certificate he had to help. “So I’ll help as much as I can,” Lynn recalled him saying.

The former Latter-day Saint missionary said the experience was one of many “powerful moments when we really felt like it wasn’t particularly in our hands.”