2025 CDF Hall-Proctor Institute Wednesday Plenaries and Workshops

An expression of love as the governing ethic, as an interpretation of Dr. King’s Beloved Community, is the guarantee that every child has access to a quality education that forms both character and capacity. Education must form both minds and moral imagination. This panel will explore how we prepare every child not only for global workforce participation but for active civic engagement through instruction that affirms culture, teaches democracy, and connects learning to leadership. Despite rising learning loss, declining civics education, and inequitable funding, we believe schools can be sanctuaries that nurture informed, justice-seeking citizens. Drawing from CDF’s policy priorities—positive youth development, civics education, culturally-responsive pedagogy, workforce alignment, and equitable funding—panelists will help us imagine an education system that lifts every voice and equips each child to transform the world. 

• Professor Kimberly J. Robinson  
• Dr. Jon N. Hale  
• Ms. Ciara Mackey-Hall, Moderator  

Facilitator: Rev. Dr. Lorena Parrish, Senior Director of the Community Engagement Institute and Professor of Urban Ministries and Center for Public Theology, Wesley Theological Seminary 
Location: Chapel 

 
Rooted in the theology of abundance, this interactive session guides participants through a community asset mapping exercise to uncover the resources, gifts, and wisdom already present in their congregations and neighborhoods. Rev. Dr. Lorena Parrish draws from her book We Have Plenty to challenge scarcity thinking and reorient us toward faith-rooted organizing. Participants will leave with practical tools to identify and leverage assets in support of children and families, moving from fragmentation to flourishing. 

Facilitator: Dr. Jon N. Hale, Professor of Education History and Policy, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign 
Location: Lodge 

 
This session explores how the legacy of Freedom Schools® offers a powerful framework for educating children to lead with courage, clarity, and care. Drawing from his research on the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement, Dr. Jon Hale guides participants through the history and practice of liberative education that centers truth, justice, and community. Educators, faith leaders, and advocates will consider how Freedom School values shape classrooms, congregations, and movements that affirm young people and equip them for civic leadership and public life. 

Facilitator: Rev. Dr. Almeda Wright, Associate Professor of Religious Education, Yale Divinity School 
Location: Library 

 
This session offers a deeper engagement with the morning’s theological framing by Rev. Dr. Almeda Wright. Participants will reflect on the spiritual and educational commitments that shape how we raise, teach, and love children in the community. With a womanist ethic and intergenerational lens, this sacred conversation invites theological educators, pastors, and caregivers to imagine together how we embody prophetic responsibility to and with children. 

Facilitator: Rev. Dr. Perzavia Praylow, Assistant Professor of Historical Theology and Black Church Studies at Louisville Seminary; Director of Black Church Studies and Grant Director of The Black Church Cornerstone Collaborative 

Location: Holiday Inn 

 
Outside of urban centers, rural communities face deep challenges in ensuring the health and healing of children. This workshop explores how thriving rural Black churches meet those needs by offering models of ministry that address food insecurity, mental health, and environmental justice. Drawing from the Black Church Rural & Small Towns Ministry Initiative, facilitators guide participants in seeing how these congregations embody the Beloved Community by creating spaces of joy, care, and resilience for children and families. 

Facilitator: Rev. Dr. Wendy Bruner, Senior Pastor, Peace United Church of Christ & Peace UCC Leadership Team  

Location: Fairfield Inn 

 
This workshop offers a practical look at how Peace UCC deepened its Freedom Schools® ministry year-round by cultivating congregational support, engaging families, and expanding its impact. Rev. Dr. Wendy Bruner and Debbie Gregg share strategies for sustainable growth and alignment with the community’s needs, rooted in CDF’s model and commitment to child well-being. 

Facilitator: Rev. Dr. Cassandra Henderson, Executive Director, Interfaith Children’s Movement   
Location: Business Center  

A session on exploring the legacy and strategies of youth and young adult involvement in social movements and what it can teach us about the innovative strategies needed to create a world that centers sustainable collective liberation.  

Facilitators: Rev. Troy Venning, Senior Pastor, Quinn Chapel AME Church, Chicago, IL; Rev. C. Sheryll Brown-Venning; William Miller 
Location: Middle Room 

 
This session offers lessons from a local congregation’s journey to prioritize children’s spiritual development, emotional wellness, and public leadership. Leaders from Quinn Chapel AME share how they have partnered with CDF’s Practicing Resurrection initiative to reimagine what it means to truly center children in worship, witness, and community life. 

Facilitators: Rev. Dr. Yvette Blair-Lavallais, Womanist Public Theologian and Food Justice Strategist; Rev. Vahisha Hasan, Steward of Care at WildSeed Society 

Location: Orchard Tent 

A Little Child Shall Lead Them is the timeless theme for CDF National Observance of Children’s Sabbaths and this year’s inspiration is Beloved Community. Come learn more about the possibilities of National Observance of Children’s Sabbaths that centers the voices of children and advocates for and with them and the issues and policies impacting them. This will be a time of dreaming and designing National Observance of Children’s Sabbaths for your faith community or organization and how Children’s Defense Fund will support and amplify your vision and equip your efforts with an interactive manual that offers ways to engage your children and community. 

Facilitator: Rev. Dr. Timothy Adkins-Jones, Senior Pastor, Bethany Baptist Church, Newark, NJ; Assistant Professor of Homiletics, Boston University School of Theology 
Location: Chapel  

 
This workshop explores how the sacred act of preaching can become a vehicle for prophetic truth, communal healing, and justice-rooted imagination. Through a theological and practical lens, Rev. Dr. Timothy Adkins-Jones invites participants to reflect on preaching that disrupts injustice, inspires transformation, and amplifies the voices of children and youth. The session includes practical tools for sermon development and communal discernment rooted in the spiritual urgency of the Beloved Community. 

Facilitator: Rev. Dr. Akosua Lesesne, educational design leader and creator of the Black Teaching Tradition (BTT)®: Founder of The Lesesne Collective 

Location: Library  

 
This workshop explores how Black teaching traditions equip children for academic success, cultural pride, and civic leadership. Rev. Dr. Akosua Lesesne guides educators and faith leaders through her Black Teaching Tradition® framework, offering tools that connect ancestral wisdom to today’s classrooms and congregational spaces. Participants will explore how teaching rooted in dignity, justice, and community builds a Beloved Community where every child is supported to thrive and lead. 

Facilitator: Rev. Dr. Patrick B. Reyes, Dean, Auburn Theological Seminary 
Location: Business Center 

 
This workshop invites participants to explore storytelling as a sacred, community-building act. Rev. Dr. Patrick Reyes draws from his work with marginalized communities to examine how personal and collective narratives help shape theological vision, movement building, and justice advocacy. Participants will engage sacred stories as tools to nurture resilience, dignity, and belonging among children and families. 

Facilitator: Rev. Dr. Keri L. Day, Elmer G. Homrighausen Professor of Constructive Theology and African American Religion, Princeton Theological Seminary 
Location: Lodge 

  
Drawing from Toni Morrison’s theological imagination, this session explores how play, joy, and creativity allow children and communities to resist dominant narratives of despair. Rev. Dr. Keri Day leads participants through a theological and cultural reflection on the power of laughter, improvisation, and sacred play as acts of resistance and restoration in Black and brown communities. 

Facilitator: Welcome Home Young Adult Cohort 
Location: The Middle Room  

 
Members of CDF’s Welcome Home cohort reflect on their journey of shaping holistic, intergenerational worship spaces that center the voice and leadership of young adults. This workshop includes storytelling, community practices, and lessons learned from a pilot initiative exploring how congregations can cultivate spiritual wellness, belonging, and innovation rooted in justice and joy. 

Facilitator: Rev. Vahisha Hassan, Steward of Care at WildSeed Society                             
Location: Orchard Tent  

 
This interactive workshop offers faith leaders, educators, and advocates concrete tools for organizing with and alongside children, youth, and families. Rev. Vahisha Hassan leads participants through spiritual practices of gathering, listening, and strategic action to challenge systemic injustice and build the Beloved Community. Grounded in sacred texts and movement theory, this session equips participants to return home with a congregational organizing strategy ready to implement. 

Facilitator: Professor Kimberly J. Robinson
Director, Education Rights Institute Professor of Law, University of Virginia
Location: Holiday Inn

Today our educational system delivers a high-quality education to some children and a low-quality education to others. How can we close the opportunity gaps? And what would it mean to guarantee every child in America a high-quality education as a federal right? In this session, Professor Kimberly J. Robinson, Director of the Education Rights Institute and editor of A Federal Right to Education will guide participants through legal, moral, and policy frameworks for advancing educational equity. This workshop explores how constitutional rights and grassroots advocacy intersect to ensure every child, especially in marginalized communities, can learn, lead, and flourish.