On Sunday, November 1, we gathered at 835 Larkin Street, the Tenderloin Museum’s home for its immersive production about the 1966 Compton’s Cafeteria uprising, to mark sixty-two years since two ministers took the first night walk.
Pamela Holmon, Executive Director of Project Homeless Connect, and Rev. Trent Thornley holding the Charles H. Lewis Special Service Award.
The night opened with a monologue from The Compton’s Cafeteria Riot, performed for us by a member of the cast, a reminder that queer history and the Tenderloin have been part of our story from the beginning. Dee Andrews, a CPE student from our summer unit, offered a reflection titled You Are Enough, and Rabbi Marty Rawlings-Fein followed with When Everyone Shows Up. John Brett led a candle lighting that remembered each of our six decades, Rev. Ben DeShazo-Couchot led the SFNM Chant, and Board Treasurer Chris Calandro raised the toast.
We also commissioned our staff for the year ahead, as we do every anniversary: Chaplain Shelly Webb, Rev. Ben DeShazo-Couchot, John Brett, Deacon Katie Laurence, Kendra Hamm, Nasha Nunez, Michael Evans, Rabbi Jeremy Sher, Rabbi Marty Rawlings-Fein, Night Ministers Rev. Doug Binzak, Rev. Elaine Donlin, Rev. Lilith B Floyd-Longino, Rev. Michael Mallory, Rev. Thom Muller, Rabbi Rena Singer and Rev. Tamunoemi Speedy-Bote-Eyoyibo, and Rev. Trent Thornley, whose certificate was presented by the Governing Board. Seventeen people, one promise: to listen, to accompany, and to rekindle hope in the difficult dark hours.
The Charles H. Lewis Special Service Award: Project Homeless Connect. Since 2004, Project Homeless Connect has brought the services people need into one room and welcomed everyone who walked in. The idea spread to hundreds of communities across the country. This June our CPE students joined its event at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium, offering spiritual care alongside everyone else. After more than twenty years, Project Homeless Connect is winding down, and we wanted to honor what it gave this city and the neighbors we meet on the street who found help through it.
Executive Director Pamela Holmon was with us to accept the award in person. The award, established when the Rev. Charles H. Lewis retired as Night Minister in 1996, honors people and organizations who serve, and speak up for, those who struggle with poverty, discrimination and injustice.
The Jo Chadwick Volunteer Appreciation Award went to Isabel “Max” Maxwell. Max came to us as a CPE student in 2023, served three more units as a Care Line Extern, became a Care Line Mentor in 2025, and now volunteers as a Care Line Counselor. In 2025 and 2026 alone she has taken more than 250 Care Line shifts, over a thousand hours on the phones, on mentor on-call coverage, and leading the Community Call. The award is named for Joanne “Jo” Chadwick, our first coordinator of what was then called the Crisis Line.
The first ever Vicki Gray Night Ministry Community Award went to Grace United Methodist Church. On the second and fourth Thursday of every month, Grace UMC, under Pastor Alex Cambe, brings bagged meals to Open Cathedral in the Mission. They kept showing up through the pandemic and through loss, and in doing so they accompanied our parishioners on the street. The award was established this year in memory of the Rev. Victoria “Vicki” Gray, deacon in the Diocese of California and co-founder of Open Cathedral, who died in August 2025.
