Engaging in Solidarity Through Hope, Equity, and Relationships
ABOUT
Who We Are
You already know something needs to change. You see it in your neighborhood, in your congregation, in the systems that shape the lives of people you care about. The question is not whether change is needed. The question is how ordinary people — people with full schedules, real lives, and a deep sense that something is wrong — can actually move something as large as an unjust system.
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ESTHER was built to answer that question.
What We Do
Across Appleton, Oshkosh, Neenah, and the communities between them, Enacting Solidarity Through Hope, Equity, and Relationships (ESTHER) organizes listening campaigns, builds task forces, leads public actions, and develops grassroots leaders — especially those with lived experience of the issues at hand. The work spans housing policy and criminal justice reform, immigration advocacy, and mental health systems. In every issue area, the method is the same: build real relationships, develop real leaders, and create the collective power to change what one person or one congregation could never change on their own.
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Through the LEARN Leadership Academy, community members build the skills, relationships, and confidence to organize their neighbors and advocate for change. They move from attendees to organizers, from observers to decision-makers.
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ESTHER is nonpartisan. It mobilizes community voice on housing, immigration, criminal justice and other issues where policy shapes people's lives.
Who We Bring Together
Across 18 member congregations in Appleton, Oshkosh, Neenah, and the surrounding communities, people of Episcopal, Lutheran, Methodist, Catholic, Islamic, Unitarian Universalist, Quaker, and Sikh traditions come together around shared values: dignity, equity and the belief that every person deserves a voice in shaping the future of their community.
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ESTHER's work is built on shared values, not shared doctrine. You do not need to belong to a faith community to belong here. What matters is a shared commitment to relationships, action and a more just Fox Valley.
Steve Hirby, Co-President
Tom Denk, Co-President
Katie Olson, Executive Director
Diane Putzer, Treasurer
Anita Kinsley, Secretary
Connie Kanitz, Past President
Mamadou Coulibaly
Michele Maki
Penny Robinson
Mary Sullivan
Sara Companik
Sharyn Gawlick
Karen Pfefferle
Clifford Stephens
Jennifer Verderami
ESTHER Leadership
The people who make ESTHER's work possible are not found only in offices or boardrooms. They are found in listening sessions, task force meetings, congregational basements, and community centers — showing up week after week because they believe this community is worth the effort.
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ESTHER's work is carried forward by people who continue showing up, building relationships and responding to emerging needs. Staff, clergy, board members, and community organizers bring their full experience to that work — and together, they hold the network accountable to its values.
Our History
ESTHER's story did not begin with a strategic plan. It began with people gathering around a table, asking honest questions about their community and deciding they were not willing to wait for someone else to answer them.
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In May 2002, a group of faith leaders and community members in the Fox Valley began meeting to explore what organized community action could look like here. Those conversations were real, sometimes difficult and deeply relational. They were the foundation of everything that followed.
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On November 7, 2004, ESTHER held its Founding Covenanting Event — a public gathering of congregations and community members who chose to commit to one another and to this work. It was a covenant, not just a launch. A promise made together that this community deserved organized, sustained, faith-rooted action.
More than 20 years later, that covenant still holds.
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ESTHER is a local affiliate of WISDOM Wisconsin and the national Gamaliel Network, a proven community organizing tradition with 44 affiliates in 17 states, built on the belief that relationships are the foundation of lasting change. As a member of that network, ESTHER draws on decades of shared organizing practice, collective learning and sustained community power.
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Today, 18-plus member congregations serve as ESTHER's organizing partners, representing Episcopal, Lutheran, Methodist, Catholic, Islamic, Unitarian Universalist, Quaker, and Sikh faith traditions across the Fox Valley. Task forces focused on housing, criminal justice, immigration, and mental health have moved from listening sessions to public action to meaningful policy engagement.
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The issues have evolved over the years. New leaders have stepped forward. New congregations have joined the covenant. Through all of it, ESTHER has brought people together to pursue justice and strengthen communities across the Fox Valley. The work is grounded in relationships, carried forward by shared values, and shaped by the needs of the people it serves alongside. As those needs change, priorities may evolve — but the purpose remains the same: to develop leaders, organize collective action, and help build a community where every person belongs.