About

Reverend Pierce is an African American national leader in spearheading faith-based community economic development benefitting low-income and minority neighborhoods. In 2010 as part of IPA he met with the Federal Reserve Board, the White House and Bank of America executives regarding the strategy for achieving this. IPA’s Board President, Rev. Pierce is the co-pastor of Heaven’s View Christian Fellowship, an IPA multi-racial, inner-city congregation. In 2017, he testified at federal EPA hearings on the Clean Power Plan. In 2020, he became part of the negotiating team on CEJA at the state level, attending meetings with the Governor’s staff. He is a recipient of one of three state grants in renewable energy/job training for ex-offender community solar power pilot project.

Originally from Cochabamba, Bolivia, Cristina is a founding Board member of The Immigration Project and long-time member of St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Bloomington, both of which are allies/members of IPA. Cristina is also active in the Crusillo movement in Peoria Catholic Diocese. Cristina was a key leader in the IPA Welcoming City campaign, the Driver’s License campaign and earlier work reimbursing unpaid wages to dozens of undocumented hotel workers. Latina.

Annette is a key climate justice leader who co-led the statewide fight against fracking in Illinois
2012-2014 resulting in 50,000 citizen comments to the state, and current leader in the stop-CO2
pipelines and sequestration campaign. She recently retired from her media and public relations small business and resides in rural Illinois.

Jonah is a primary climate justice leader, residing in Galesburg in west-central Illinois. He is an
anthropology professor at Knox College and an officer at Temple Shalom. Jonah led the State
Fair public action in 2021 with Governor Pritzker securing his support of the Climate and
Equitable Jobs Act.

Reverend Parks is the recently retired Presiding Elder of the Illinois-north district of the AME
church representing 47 AME congregations across Illinois and Iowa. He is a long-time leader in
IPA and Danville’s disadvantaged community (identified as one of the worst cities in the nation
for Blacks), chair of the local community action agency and past president of the Danville
NAACP chapter.

Long-time IPA leaders in IPA’s predatory lending and environmental justice campaigns, Paul and Verlyn became members through their congregation, First Presbyterian Church of Decatur. Verlyn is a member of the congregation’s peacemaking committee. Verlyn is a retired public school teacher and Paul is a retired staff engineer. Active in their community, are officers in the Audubon Society, Verlyn is a Master Gardener and is the president of her neighborhood organization. Paul uses a wheelchair due to Guillain Barre Syndrome.

Rev. Lyons is no longer with us. He was Senior Pastor of Mt. Zion Baptist church, an African American congregation located in a low-income, community-of-color Peoria neighborhood. Rev. Lyons was a leader on the Peoria environmental justice team, which grew out of his congregation. Many of his congregants suffer from health issues due to proximity to a coal burning power plant. He was the founder of METEC (Mt. Zion’s Effort to Equip the Community) which IPA worked with during the 2008 foreclosure crisis. He was a Bradley graduate (1971) and held a Masters in Education Administration (Bradley, 1986).