Meet Sepi Djavaheri, Director, Community Mobilizers at the UJA Federation of New York. Having fled the Iranian revolution at an early age with her family, landing in Germany and eventually the U.S., Sepi has channeled her Jewish faith and the experience of being “other” into a focus on building connection and community to combat the social isolation and loneliness that so many in our communities experience.

A couple of weeks ago, I was having breakfast in a hotel lobby in Omaha, NE, when I noticed an older man hovering over a table where a dad and his two young children were seated. The older man, who had clearly just met this family, chatted with them while they ate their breakfast. After a while, it started to feel awkward, at least to me as an eavesdropper. It felt like the man had overstayed this encounter with strangers, that he hung around too long while the family was just trying to enjoy their morning. And then I remembered an event we co-hosted in September on Faith Communities Fighting Isolation and stopped to think: Maybe this man was lonely.

Faith leaders and communities, as uniquely powerful hubs of connection and belonging, have increasingly stepped up to combat the epidemic of social isolation, utilizing their deep-rooted networks to offer support and foster relationships. In fact, faith communities might be one of our most underutilized resources to combat this crisis. innoFaith has teamed up with Weave: The Social Fabric Project at the Aspen Institute to host a conversation with leaders engaging faith communities as part of the solution. Join us on September 18!

Earlier this year, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy released a report about an epidemic of loneliness and isolation in the U.S. Since Robert Putnam published his highly-acclaimed and widely-read book Bowling Alone in 2000, we've all been aware of the fraying social fabric in our country and the decline of organizations like faith communities that build social capital. The situation has now reached crisis proportions. With so many people crying out for community and connection, why are faith communities, which have fostered community and connection for centuries and millennia, failing to meet the demand?