In this episode of Quakers Today, co-hosts Peterson Toscano and Sweet Miche ask: What does the word “home” mean to you? From a laundry ministry on the streets of San Francisco to a Quaker refuge during World War II, Friends are reimagining what it means to offer shelter, connection, and belonging. Our episode gets its inspiration from the May 2025 issue of Friends Journal.

Peterson: Gabe Ehri writes in the opening editorial, “In a world as profoundly abundant as ours, it is a societal failure of monumental proportions that anyone go without safe and comfortable housing.”

Sweet Miche: And he ends with this reminder from scripture and Woolman: “Think on these things and do them.” That’s what we’re exploring today—what it means to actually do something.

In This Episode:

Zae Illo, an Earlham School of Religion graduate and a longtime public theologian, shares how his lived experience of homelessness informs his ministry among unhoused neighbors in San Francisco. Outside the Friends meetinghouse, his laundry ministry provides more than clean clothes—it offers presence, listening, and dignity.
Read his article: Laundry Chaplaincy for Unsheltered Souls

Sharlee DiMenichi, staff writer at Friends Journal, highlights how Quaker meetings across North America care for unhoused neighbors. From shelter partnerships in Arizona to memorials for unhoused Friends in California, her reporting centers spiritual practice and community action.
Read her article: Solidarity with Our Unhoused Neighbors

Michael Luick-Thrams reflects on Scattergood Hostel, the Iowa Quaker school that transformed into a refuge for Jewish children fleeing the Holocaust.
Watch the QuakerSpeak video: Scattergood: A Quaker Response to the Holocaust
Read the book: Scattergood by H.M. Bouwman

Book Review
We feature Bird, Bee, and Bug Homes and Habitats for Garden Wildlife, a vibrant guide for helping our smallest neighbors. It is recommended for ages 6–12 and curious adults.
Read the review: Bird, Bee and Bug Homes

Monthly Question

We asked listeners: Beyond a roof and four walls, what does the word “home” mean to you?
Thank you to Mario, Sonia, Erin, and Ben for sharing heartfelt reflections. From childhood memories to chosen neighborhoods, your answers grounded this episode in personal truth.

Next question: What is your favorite Quaker term—one common among Friends but strange to outsiders?
Leave a voicemail at 317-QUAKERS or comment on our socials.

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Transcript 

Quakers Today: Quakers and Home

Peterson Toscano: In this episode of Quakers Today, we ask, what does home mean to you?

Sweet Miche: Zae Illo is a graduate of Earlham’s School of Religion and a public theologian. He has created a unique ministry for the unhoused people who gather outside the San Francisco Friends meeting. He shares his own experience of living without shelter, and he challenges his meeting faces as they seek to truly welcome unhoused neighbors.

Peterson Toscano: Sharlee DiMenichi brings us stories of how Friends meetings across the US Are sharing their time and resources to meet the growing needs of people without housing.

Sweet Miche: And Michael Luick-Thrams, takes us back to World War II, when Scattergood Friend School became a refuge for Jewish families fleeing genocide. I’m Sweet Miche.

Peterson Toscano: I’m Peterson Toscano. This is season four, Episode six of Quakers Today, a podcast from Friends Publishing Corporation. This season is made possible thanks to the support of Friends Fiduciary and the American Friends Service Committee. Thank you for joining us today. Our episode gets its inspiration from the May 2025 issue of Friends Journal.

Sweet Miche: Yeah, this issue lifts up stories of Friends who aren’t content to just look away from the crisis of homelessness, but who instead follow spirits, lead to care for their neighbors.

Peterson Toscano: As Gabe writes in the opening editorial, in a world as profoundly abundant as ours, it is a societal failure of monumental proportions that anyone go without safe and comfortable housing.

Sweet Miche: And he ends with this reminder from Scripture and woman think on these things and do them. That’s what we’re exploring today, what it means to actually do something. When we talk about urban ministry, some, um, people think of soup kitchens, shelters, or donations. But for Zae Illo, ministry is something different. It’s about listening, showing up, and letting spirit lead him to places that are uncomfortable and deeply needed.

Laundry Chaplaincy for Unsheltered Souls

Peterson Toscano: Drawing from his own lived experience of homelessness, Zae brings a powerful witness to San Francisco’s streets and to Friends. Today he shares what he’s learned from offering spiritual care in a most unlikely form. Laundry.

Zae Illo: More than a decade ago, when I moved to San Francisco from Chicago, I lived at one of the largest shelters in the city. This first required spending many nights sleeping while sitting upright in a chair. Not everyone in shelter necessarily receives a bed. Every day we had to queue in order to check in, praying that not too many people in front of us signed up for laundry, since there were only so many total washes available per day. I keenly recall feeling exposed while in my bunk bed, sleeping next to people who are sometimes in the midst of mental episodes. Yet for all of the challenges, I recall staff who are clearly gifted in managing Conflict and creating rapport with shelter guests. Their ability to exert influence and speak with the culture, not at the culture was fascinating to me. I also recall the conversations with George, an elderly African American with whom I’d often eat dinner at the common dining room. He is an ancestor, an angel whispering a word for me to carry on in this sometimes spiritually perilous work.

Sweet Miche: Those early experiences shaped Zae’s understanding of dignity and community. Later, while finishing seminary at Earlham School of religion, he lived and worked at a tiny house shelter in Oakland. A Quaker founded this transitional housing community. It was a different model of care. Private space, personal keys, the freedom to do simple things like wash, laundry whenever needed. Through that, Zae’s idea of housing and ministry was transformed.

Zae Illo: On January 28, 2024, I began sitting outside the meetinghouse on Sundays during meeting for worship to extend spiritual care in the form of laundry. The laundry is just the outer shell, the spiritual tortilla per se, that hides what’s really the center of the experience. Active listening and spiritual care to persons usually excluded, absent from worship.

Peterson Toscano: What Zae offers isn’t flashy. A simple folding table, a handwritten sign, an invitation to relationship. But his presence reveals something many urban dwellers and worship communities prefer not to see.

Zae Illo: It means that you might have someone in the fellowship pal who’s literally falling asleep in a plate of food. It means that you might have someone that is so exhausted and so tired they’re not able to sit up in meaningful worship. It makes people uncomfortable because they don’t know what to do. Because if we’re being really honest, it collides into the discipline of an urban context where we are, um, trained to some degree to ignore people and pretend we don’t see them. It invites discomfort because you’re called to respond in a different way than you might if you were just walking down the street.

Sweet Miche: Welcoming spirit doesn’t always look orderly. It sometimes looks like exhaustion, hunger, grief. And it challenges our expectations, especially when race and power dynamics are involved.

Zae Illo: It is unfortunately, a reminder that no matter how long I sit in the chair on Sundays, no matter how much I serve in committees, no matter how much I show up at the end of the day, I still am an African American in the tradition. And if the assumption of other people is that all of that time that I’ve spent there will somehow totally assimilate me into their culture, they are surprised to learn that that is not true, that the concerns that I will hold will be of populations that they might might not register in their world. The Same way, because as someone within the African American population that is disproportionately sleeping outside of our meeting house, it makes perfect sense why Spirit might nudge me in a certain direction and not others.

Peterson Toscano: For Zae, Spirit’s call doesn’t erase his identity. It deepens it.

Zae Illo: Spirit’s not magic. It does not entail a personality displacement. But Spirit is not a Star Wars laser that’s going to magically teleport you to be something that you never were to begin with. It helps you to live the life that you already live at greater depth, a greater understanding of yourself. So then when you hit that spiritual realization that, oh, I’ve been doing this thing, ignoring these people, et cetera, that’s very uncomfortable. And so for some people, it would be much easier if those people weren’t there to remind them and to serve as that point of collision.

Sweet Miche: Zae sees in the Quaker tradition a way forward, a chance to meet people not with judgment, but with listening and love.

Zae Illo: And so I’m very hopeful about the potential of our tradition, uh, to meet those people. Um, I fall perhaps much more on the line of Paul in the Quaker sense than James. You know, the mission call is to go and find those people versus to stay secluded inside of the meeting house, hoping again that other forces beyond myself will fix these issues.

Peterson Toscano: Zae reminds us Spirit’s work often begins where our comfort ends. When we show up with open hearts, we find a different kind of worship, one built not on silence Illone, but on presence, on dignity, on love and action.

Sweet Miche: What does faithfulness look like on the streets where you live? Where is Spirit calling you to see more clearly and to love more deeply?

Peterson Toscano: Zae has a lot more to share about his experiences with unhoused people in San Francisco. You can read his article “Laundry Chaplaincy for Unsheltered Souls” in the May 2025 issue of Friends Journal. It is also available for free free at friendsjournal.org. Learn more about Zae Illo at his website, Zaeillo.com. Zae is spelled Z A E and Illo is I L L O. Zaeillo.com.

Quaker meeting’s response to homelessness in their communities

Peterson Toscano: We began with Zae’s story of urban ministry in San Francisco. Personal spirit led and grounded in relationship.

Sweet Miche: And now we hear from journalist Sharlee DiMenichi, who reports on how Quaker meetings across North America are responding to homelessness in their communities.

Sharlee DiMenichi: The Tempe Meeting in Tempe, Arizona, offers a dinner for people facing homelessness. They also have partnered with other congregations to offer a stayover shelter in a house of worship downtown. One of the Members lives at a local retirement community. She had arranged for the bedding from the overnight shelter to be washed at the retirement community and then taken back before they had laundry facilities at the shelter. Folks really came together around serving people facing homelessness in that meeting. Some people prepared dinner, some people served dinner. People would also go to the overnight shelter and talk with folks and see what other needs could be met. 

Another one that really touched my heart was the effort by Bruce Folsom of San Francisco Meeting who took a big emotional risk by just standing outside the meeting house two days a week developing relationships with people facing homelessness. He developed a really close friendship with an unhoused person named Yolanda. Yolanda introduced him to many people in the homeless community who he otherwise probably would not have met because they would not have trusted him enough without Yolanda’s connection. Unfortunately, Yolanda passed away after many years of friendship with Folsom and Folsom was really grieved by her death. He met her mother and sister and asked the San Francisco meeting to have a memorial for her. Although she was not a member or an attender, they did have a memorial. Folsom spoke to me of allowing one’s heart to be broken repeatedly by the difficulties that some folks face when they’re unhoused. He also spoke of the need for spiritually grounding practices which for him are prayer and plain song.

Sweet Miche: That’s just one of many stories Sharlee DiMenichi shares in the May 2025 issue of Friends Journal.

Peterson Toscano: To read her full article “Solidarity with our Unhoused Neighbors” and to explore more about how Friends are taking action, visit friendsjournal.org.

Scattergood Hostel is America’s largest grassroots response to the Holocaust

Michael Luick-Thrams: What were we doing in a time of danger and peril and the rising clouds of war? This is America’s largest grassroots response to the Holocaust. I’m Michael Luick-Thrams. I live in Thuringia, Germany, where I’m a professor of social history at the Universität Erfurt. The way that Scattergood Hostel was created itself is sort of a miracle. The way that Scattergood Hostel was created itself is sort of a miracle. Young Iowa Quakers met in Clear Lake, Iowa in 1938 and said the situation in Nazi Germany is insufferable. The Jews are being abused, they’re being threatened, they probably imagined some were being killed. And so the Iowa young Quakers wrote to the AFSC (American Friends Service Committee) and said, “you know, we could imagine bringing some of these refugees to Iowa in the summer and doing projects. We could use the closed school at Scattergood.” The letter arrived at Clarence Pickett’s desk here in Philadelphia at the AFSC just as he was going on this fact-finding delegation to Nazi Germany. Clarence Pickett returns, he hands his report in to the AFSC proper, and the report is filed, stamped, and dated November 8th. On November 9th, the next day, was Kristallnacht. So, Clarance Pickett has just gotten this letter from these Iowa Quakers and he’s just returned himself, and he’s seeing these Jews who are desperate to get out of the Nazi morass. So he grabs the young Iowa Quaker’s offer and he says great! But we’re not just going to send people to you in the summer; we’re going to send them to you year round. The Iowa Quakers take over this abandoned school and make it a hostel. And when you think of these Iowa Quaker kids came up with the idea to bring these refugees to Iowa, it’s the most improbable ridiculous idea there is. But when Germany took over the Sudetenland and only a couple of months later they were burning the synagogues, you had to do something. Those who care and are able could literally live with those who need a new life, and that’s what Scattergood really did help them do. that these people were untrained and yet they gave them what they had. There was 30 refugees at any given time to a ratio of 15 American staff, and certainly that could be a model for today

Sweet Miche: That was Michael Luick-Thrams, a member of Des Moines Valley Friends Meeting and an excerpt from the QuakerSpeak video entitled Scattergood Hostel A Quaker Response to the Holocaust. You can hear more QuakerSpeak videos filmed and edited by Layla Cuthrall on YouTube or at Quakerspeak.com.

Peterson Toscano: If you or a young person in your life wants learn more about this time in Scattergood’s history pick up the book Scattergood by H. M. Bouwman. This historical novel centers around Peggy, a 12-year-old farm girl, Gunter, a young refugee and Camilla, a young Quaker volunteer. It’s a story of friendship, resilience and finding light even in the shadows of a world on the brink of war.

Book Recommendation: Bird, Bee and Bug Houses: Homes and Habitats for Garden Wildlife

Peterson Toscano: Just like us, non-human creatures need a place to call home. Which brings us to a delightful little book that has landed on the Friends Journal review desk. Bird, Bee and Bug Houses: Homes and Habitats for Garden Wildlife by Susie Behar and illustrated by Esther Coombs.

Sweet Miche: The book is packed with vibrant illustrations of our smallest neighbors and the gardens they thrive in. Behar stresses how the local habitat right outside our doors is often our first and most direct interaction with the natural world.

Peterson Toscano: It’s brimming with easy-to-follow instructions for building all sorts of wildlife homes, birdhouses of different shapes and sizes, cozy owl and bat boxes, even bug hotels. There are also recipes for bird cake, (yum!). And even ideas for creating mini ponds for our amphibian friends.

Sweet Miche: It sounds like a fantastic resource, Peterson.

Peterson Toscano: Bird, Bee and Bug Houses: Homes and Habitats for Garden Wildlife is by Susie Behar and illustrated by Esther Coombs. It’s recommended for ages 6 through 12, but I think I’m going to totally dip into it.

Sweet Miche: To read the full review of this book by Sheila Bumgarner and the review of Scattergood by Eileen Redden, visit Friends Journal online at friendsournal.org.

Listener Responses

Peterson Toscano: We begin season five in September, but in the meantime we will bring you special interim episodes. Some of these will share audio from previous episodes. We’ll also air content from other podcasts and create original content.

Sweet Miche: Here’s the question for September. What is your favorite Quaker term that is common among Friends but strange to outsiders?

Peterson Toscano: Oh my goodness. There are so many we take for granted. I’m not gonna give any away, but I’m curious to hear what people have to say. There is a couple ways you could answer this question. You can leave a voice memo, which is basically a voicemail, with your name and the town where you live. And here’s the number to call 307 Quakers. That’s 317-782-537-7317. Quakers plus one. If you’re calling from outside the USA, you can also send us an email podcast, friendsjournal.org. we have these contact details in our show notes over@quakeroday.org. oh, and you could also leave a comment. On our many social media platforms now we hear answers to the question, Beyond a roof and four walls, what does the word home mean to you?

Listener Voicemails: 

Rochelle: Hi,, my name is Rochelle, and I’m calling from Alabama. The very first time I attended a Quaker meeting, I didn’t understand why tears kept going down my cheeks. It kept happening, I think, for months, certainly for weeks, until I finally realized it was the first time in my life, the first place where I didn’t have to wear any masks. I could be me. I could feel the presence of spirit and that which is sacred in each of us. The tears were not allergies. They were gratitude. 

Certainly, Quaker meeting means a lot more to me now that I’m in Alabama. There’s exactly two meetings in the entire state that are open, friendly, and affiliated. The only way I can join them or anyone else, since they’re hours away, is by Zoom. I very much have that gratitude continuing. And I’m grateful for zoom. Thank you.

Linda: Hi, this is Linda from Orcas Island in Washington State. The first thing that came to my mind on this query is walking in the forest of my local state park. Especially the part of the forest that all modern sound falls away. And it’s just the sound of the trees blowing in the wind, the water gurgling over the rocks, just being deeply immersed in nature. One other instance comes to my mind of home is when a group of people are gathered in a deep silence. Thank you.

Cass: This is Cass.. I use they, them pronouns. I’m calling from Providence, Rhode Island, United States. While home is actually kind of a difficult things for me, I moved a lot as a kid, and it’s an adult. I kept moving a lot. I really haven’t stayed December for more than a few years. Right now is the longest I’ve been in a place since I was very young, which is even just three years, two and a half years. Nonetheless, Quaker meeting and silent worship and that experience together has felt like a home for me over time. How can I find a home in this, you know, spiritual community practice if I’m, um, not sticking with it? Like, there’s this deeper connection and community that, like, I just can’t pull off right, I don’t have access to. But I realized I actually feel different now. I do feel that way. 

Several months ago, in the fall, I was, um, going through this complex grief. Somebody died who was I loved, but also harmed me. And. And the feelings were very large. I didn’t really know what to do with them. I went to Quaker Meeting; my mom, and we were there. And I don’t really know why, but in this space, I just started crying. I couldn’t stop. I was crying in this space. I thought to maybe be embarrassed or thought to maybe be like, who am I to show up and leave strong feelings? But I was just so incredibly touched with how people just got some Kleenex next to me. People respond to things that I said. People let me have these emotions. And it wasn’t like a giant alarm deal. I was just in this space, and it really felt like facing in the same direction as people, uh, sitting on a dock together, looking at the water. I realized that even though my way might look different, I have kept coming back and back and back and trying to claim this feeling of home I feel in Quaker meeting. 

And in this moment, I felt claimed back. There was just this feeling of, yes, come here. Yes, sit next to me. Home is something that you can reach towards again and again, and it’s something that can claim you back. That’s a beautiful thing to have that relationship, even if it’s hard sometimes to stay put. Yeah, I think that’s all.

Christina: Well, my name is Christina. I live in Searsport, Maine. I was contented where I spent my childhood in a. In central Pennsylvania. I learned about global warming in the early 1960s in late elementary school and decided, oh, well, if in 50 years the climate’s going to get this much warmer, then it’ll be a reasonable, uh, one that’s comparable to central Pennsylvania today in the early 60s. In 50 years, it’ll be Maine. About 50 years later, I found myself moving to Maine for a variety of other reasons unrelated to that. 

I grew up with dual nationality, and my mother told me I would know which was my right country when I was there for a while, and had been there and then left there for a while. For me, that home is my father’s country, where I did not grow up. But I met him at 22, and he looked right, he sounded right, and he felt right, and he smelled right. I knew that was my daddy and never, um, saw him again. But I still feel as though his country is mine, is my home. 

There’s the emotional home. My son’s ashes are here in Maine in my backyard, and my granddaughter lives  just a 40 minute drive away. So that’s emotional. Then there’s the spiritual home. If I was brought up outside of organized religion. But my rebellion against my mother was to think about religion a lot and decided when I was maybe 11 that if I were a Christian, I’d be a Christian Scientist. But if I couldn’t be a Christian, then I’d rather be a Quaker.

Sweet Miche: We put our question out to our listeners on Instagram and the responses received were so thoughtful and, well, homy. Our first response was from Mario, “Having moved around so much as a child and as an adult, it really just means a place where I’ll be missed if I suddenly stopped showing up.”

Peterson Toscano: Home is not just about the space but the connections we forge within it. Our next response from Sonia really resonated with me. Sonia writes, “I remember visiting my elementary school in sixth grade and being wowed by how much I still felt enveloped and surrounded by all the love there, even when it was no longer my daily place.”

Sweet Miche: In this sweet answer from Erin, she wrote, “my husband neither Brooklyn nor upstate woods feels like home without him. I know it’s cheesy that it’s true.”

Peterson Toscano: Our last answer is from Ben. “My family is so diasporic that anytime there’s a ‘wear your flag’ day at the school I teach at I don’t participate. But being in North Brooklyn since 2010 makes it feel like home. Biking the streets without a map is so grounding.” Yeah, that feeling of finally finding roots, of navigating a place with such familiarity. That’s a beautiful aspect of home too. Meesh. Thank you Mario, Sonia, Erin, and Ben for those answers.

Sweet Miche: Keep an eye out on our home – the podcast feed. Before next season we’ll be releasing a few interim episodes. Thank you for listening, friend. See you soon.