“Deeply listening to what it is they’re saying." That, says young hospice chaplain Kerry Egan, is the most important gift she offers to the dying patients she ministers to in New Bedford, Massachusetts.

"As a parish nurse one of the greatest things we do is be present and just listen," says Diane Tieman of Queen of the Rosary Roman Catholic Church in suburban Chicago.

“It doesn’t take a lot of misfortune to be on the street these days. I think everybody in America knows that right now,” says Ann Miller of Helena, Montana, where she and her husband, Wayne, opened God’s Love, an emergency homeless shelter and soup kitchen.

"These schools are the jewels of their neighborhood, and we need to save them," says Susan Work, president of Holy Family Ministries in Chicago.

"We’re a nation based on moral values, and when we express those values to communities around the world, we’re showing them an America…with whom they want to partner and not fight."

Working with communities of faith means “helping millions of Americans connect to the opportunity to serve vulnerable populations abroad.”

“Our Christian faith,” says David Montague, director of the Memphis Teacher Residency program, “informs our belief that every child can learn.”

“If we can bring in some light, the darkness will not overcome the light, and that’s where faith is. We believe that,” says Lyn Lusi, who has spent her professional life in medical care for the people of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

“The question in the eyes of many other Muslims,” according to Georgetown University Islamic studies professor John Esposito, is “are these people really Muslims or not?”

"Many of the old forms of discrimination that we supposedly left behind in the Jim Crow era are suddenly legal again once you’ve been branded a felon," says Michelle Alexander, author of "The New Jim Crow."