Texas Impact Founding Executive Director Lin Team, Sen. Nathan Johnson, and Executive Director Bee Moorhead
Reflection on House and Senate resolutions honoring Texas Impact
by Lin Team, Texas Impact Founding Executive Director
It was déjà vu all over again yesterday at the Capitol. Lewie and I joined staff and board members of Texas Impact to hear resolutions in the House and Senate honoring Texas Impact for its 50 years as a faith-based advocacy organization. I was there at the beginning in 1973, as a representative of Grace Presbytery on the Division of Church and Society of the Texas Conference of Churches when religious leaders organized the Interfaith Commission on Human Priorities, which became Texas Impact.
In 1979 I became the first Executive Director, and helped build the organization through the 1980s, “retiring” in 1990 to stay home with our two small children. Those were hard times in Texas for humane policies. We worked in coalition with other progressive organizations and were able to achieve some policy changes that benefited people who needed them. One example is in 1981 getting the state to remove an $80 million constitutional limit on the amount that could be spent on Aid to Families with Dependent Children. Another was removing the law against educating undocumented children, a change that finally was accomplished in the courts. Much of our work was supporting funding for health and human services, which was always difficult, though we did make a difference.
Although many of the challenges I tried to meet are still with us, today’s Impact work is much more sophisticated and professional, under the directorship of Bee Moorhead, who has led the organization since 2000. The social justice policy agenda is still much the same, but it has grown over the years to include major efforts on climate change.
I am grateful to Representative Donna Howard and Senator Nathan Johnson for their recognition of the work of Texas Impact, and pleased to be able to witness that organization’s growth over all these 50 years.
Read the Resolution