Faith and Action for Strength Together (FAST)
​in Pinellas County 
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Events on the Horizon

Research Kick-Off
Monday, December 8th, 2025 @ 7:00 p.m.
Location: TBD
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FAST Rally
Monday, March 9th, 2026 at 7:00 p.m.  
Location:  TBD

Nehemiah Action
(this is the one where public officials are present)
Thursday, April 16th, 2026 at 7:00 p.m.
First Baptist Church St. Petersburg
​1900 Gandy Blvd. St. Petersburg, FL  33702
Please bring 3+ guests!

Joshua Assembly
Monday, May 18th, 2026 at 7:00 p.m.
Location:  TBD

Elevator Speech:

Faith and Action for Strength Together (FAST) is a grassroots inter-faith organization gathering people from more than 40 congregations in Pinellas County to lobby local politicians to act on specific issues. For 2025, those issues are affordable housing and water quality. Like all faith-based work, the effort is deliberate and unfolds in God's time. The power of this ministry lies in people of many different denominations and faiths coming together under one roof for one purpose:  to serve the community. 

In the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, “Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me” (Matt 25:45). Our baptismal vows bind us to our brothers and sisters. Wherever they are, we reach out to meet their spiritual and material needs. At St. Thomas', we focus on corporal works of mercy. We serve others as though we are serving Christ himself by feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, clothing the naked, welcoming the stranger, visiting the sick and the incarcerated. We work to address the causes of suffering in society, for example, by joining with other people of faith in our community to change local policy. By word and example, we promise to proclaim the Good News of God in Christ. 

St. Thomas' has been partnering with St. Augustine's Episcopal Church, a sponsor of Faith and Action for Strength Together (FAST). This grassroots organization gathers people of faith together to lobby local politicians to act on specific issues. For 2025, those issues are affordable housing and water quality. Like all faith-based work, this is slow work which unfolds in God's time. The power of this ministry lies in people of many different denominations and faiths coming together under one roof for one purpose: to serve the community. 

 Please contact Adrienne Ruga, 727.428.0356 / [email protected] or Bill Barns, 757.646.5146 / [email protected] for more information.


Past Events

Annual Assembly October 27, 2025

Joshua Assembly May, 2025
The Joshua Assembly on Monday, 12 May was a huge success and here's a brief recap of the event. Although the crowd was small the enthusiasm was palpable.  Councilman Copley Gerdes and Pinellas County Vice Chair Dave Eggers were present and provided “Yes” responses to support for development of 500 units of affordable housing for the next 5 years.  The Mayor of Dunedin and the Sustainment Officer met with Water Quality team members earlier in the day and gave their support to green stormwater initiatives, also. 

This event also marked the kick-off the FAST’s fundraising drive.  Please prayerfully consider your personal commitment to investing; the simplest means to accomplish this is through the website:  

http://fast-pinellas.org/invest-in-the-ministry

To aid in your investment decision, please be aware of some key achievements:

One might rightly ask, "What returns do I get for my investment in FAST?"  Well, here are some examples:
 
Bringing people together across racial and faith lines: FAST brings together African American, Hispanic, and Caucasian people from diverse religious backgrounds to build relationships around shared values such as wanting safe neighborhoods, good schools, and access to jobs.
 
Education

• Pushed Pinellas Early Learning Coalition to provide funds so that all low-income children in Pinellas County can attend a full-day pre-k program. From 2005 to May 2018, 12,794 four-year-olds benefited ($19 million value).
• We got the School District to create a new policy requiring principals to get approval to give out of school suspensions to primary school students and to being implementing restorative justice practices. (Also for upper school students it required principals to get approval for an out of school suspension of more than 3 days.)  There have been significant year-over-year decreases in out-of-school suspension since we began pushing for this in 2014.  As a result, there have been over 70,000 less out-of-school suspensions in Pinellas County.

Jobs

• In 2011, St. Petersburg College responded to the concerns raised by FAST by creating the Workforce Institute to provide affordable short-term training opportunities to help people find good-paying jobs in Pinellas County. Since 2011, the workforce institute has served over 30,000 participants. Moreover, as of March 31, 2019, over 9,000 industry certifications and licensures have been awarded. St. Petersburg College can track that there were over 4,500 successful job placements for students who participated in over 60 SPC Certificate Programs. With grants, St. Petersburg College has invested $5.6 million in job training programs.
• In 2015, we convinced the City of St. Petersburg to pass the Disadvantaged Worker Ordinance to ensure that for construction contracts of over $2 million, 10% of work hours will go to ex-offenders or people who have been on public assistance in the last 12 months. As of May 2023, nearly 64,000 work hours had been worked by disadvantaged workers.  The City of St. Petersburg continues to include this requirement in their request for proposals for all large construction projects even though the state legislature has tried to nullify the original ordinance. 

 
Affordable Housing

• FAST won an affordable housing trust fund from the county commissioners with an initial $19.2 million, which created 1,469 new housing units for families making less than $40,000. ($19.2 million in a trust fund, plus $152 million leveraged from the private sector for affordable housing).
• In 2015, we got an additional $15 million released from Penny-for-Pinellas funds for affordable housing. This alone resulted in about 700 affordable units.
• In 2018, we got the County Commission to commit 4.15% of the Penny-for-Pinellas Sales tax for affordable housing. To date, this has produced $85 million of county funds for affordable housing.
• In 2024, we got the Housing Finance Authority to change their bylaws to require that any affordable housing units they fund stay affordable for 50 years instead of just 30 years, per the previous policy. 

Criminal Justice

• Through the FAST Hot Spots campaign, the local law enforcement of the County, Clearwater, and St. Petersburg have, in total, cleaned up over 76 hot spots of drugs and crime in our communities.
• We successfully passed a bill by the state legislature to allow 4,000 non-violent offenders to attend locally-based drug treatment rather than go to prison. It is estimated that this saved the state 92 million dollars in prison costs. This leveraged $19 million in federal funding for drug treatment.
• From 2013-2018, FAST worked with sister organizations throughout Florida to reduce youth arrests statewide by pushing law enforcement to give children civil citations instead of arresting them. With a civil citation, children still have sanctions for poor behavior but do not get a criminal record. Because of our work, since 2013, over 60,000 children have been prevented from receiving an arrest record. saving the state over $184 million dollars.  Because of FAST’s push with local law enforcement leaders, Pinellas leads the state in juvenile civil citation usage.  With 95% of eligible receiving a civil citation instead of an arrest. 
• Additionally, because of our work there are now 17 counties in Florida (including Pinellas) with adult civil citations programs. 
• In response to concerns about racial profiling, FAST got the St. Pete Police and Sheriff’s office to accept and investigate anonymous complaints. 

Healthcare

• Through our efforts in 2013, three dental clinics were added, serving an additional 1,900 people annually.  In 2015 we got County Commissioners to allocate $900,000 of reoccurring funding into the county budget for dental care to allow 1,600 more people to get access to dental care each year.  In total, 3,500 more people get access to comprehensive dental care in Pinellas County each year ($4.4 million saved in emergency room costs since 2013).
• In 2018, we heard hundreds of stories from families who were struggling to get mental health and addiction services. In our county, there are over 90 different providers and no centralized way to access them. So, we got commitments from county commissioners and key funders to create a central pathway where anyone seeking mental health or addiction treatment could get access to the help they need. After years of FAST follow up, the county finally launched the Care About Me program. With Care About Me, trained professionals help community members figure out what exact services they need and get them an appointment before they hang up the phone! This program launched in May of 2024, and by December 2024, 897 people had been helped through this service. 

 
One Joshua Assembly highlight was a personal testimony provided by 12-year-old Tovah, a member of Temple Beth-El.  She told the crowd that she invited 3 friends to the Nehemiah Action and then decided to ask more.  She expanded her circle and invited other friends, family, and her teachers.  Tovah also said that her family has brought her to FAST meetings for several years and that they contributed $500; she was so inspired that she invested $20 of her own money in the organization.  Mozel tov, Tovah!!  

Ms. April Birdsong has been hired as the new Lead Organizer and we wish her well.  Music was provided by the Jammin’ Jews and refreshments were served to honor FAST’s 20th year!!

Nehemiah Action April 7, 2025

From the FAST Staff, "Congrats to all of you on a successful Nehemiah Action last Monday! We are still following up with leaders, but our current ticket count is 1,437! That's an increase of about 275 people from last year, which is our highest turnout since the pandemic began. You all should feel proud of the progress we are making to build the power needed to win solutions to the problems our communities face on a daily basis. But we're not done yet!"

For the St. Thomas faithful, thank you so much for supporting the Nehemiah Action.  We had more than 30 parishioners and friends attending!  It was inspirational to also have three elected officials participate in the proceedings and agree to partner on continued improvements in affordable housing and water quality.  Enjoy some pictures below.

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St. Thomas' a Covenanted Congregation in FAST

At the FAST Rally on March 10th, 2025, St. Thomas' was welcomed as a covenanted congregation in FAST!  Thanks to the generosity of our congregation, we raised sufficient funding for the annual parish dues to this organization. 

Fr. Ryan Whitely, Rector of St. Thomas' provided these thoughts on the culmination of a three-year endeavor:

            We at St. Thomas’ Episcopal Church, St. Petersburg have begun a justice ministry in response to the Lord’s call on our hearts.  Jesus invites us to be his hands and feet and provide mercy to feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, heal the sick, and visit the incarcerated. But Christ also calls us to advocate for justice, working within established systems to eliminate hunger, poverty, and illness at their source.  We welcome the opportunity to add our voices to this coalition of faithful people in FAST to make a lasting and positive impact in our community.  By doing so we will be closer to God’s kingdom and a Beloved Community. 
            We are grateful for the inspiration and assistance provided by St. Augustine’s Episcopal Church, particularly Ms. Jan Neuberger, as well as the tremendous support by the FAST Pinellas staff in each step in our journey.


Important Links:
Faith & Action for Strength Together (FAST)
Invest in FAST


 Please contact Adrienne Ruga,727.428.0356 / [email protected] or Bill Barns, 757.646.5146 / [email protected] for more information.

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