On the autumn equinox of 2001, nine volunteers met at a kitchen table and agreed to keep writing fact sheets. On the autumn equinox of 2026, the organization they began marked its twenty-fifth year.
More than 400 volunteers, supporters, and friends from other faith communities joined an online gathering on the evening of September 22. There were no long speeches. Co-founder Margit Aldane read the first sentence of the first fact sheet, as she has at every anniversary: "The people described here are your neighbors, and this page is meant to help you know them."
Twenty-Five Years in Brief
- 12 Plain Facts fact sheets, now in a sixth edition
- 1,000+ Speakers Bureau presentations since 2008
- 212 graduates of Interfaith Representative Training
- 140+ hospitals, hospices, and correctional facilities briefed
Since 2005 the Rights Desk has answered several thousand requests for help, the great majority of them resolved without a formal complaint. Today 64 speakers in 29 states, 22 Rights Desk advocates, and 48 affiliate groups carry the work. The full story is told on Our History.
What We Have Learned
When we started, I thought our work was to answer hostility. It turned out that most of it was answering honest questions that nobody had been willing to ask out loud. A calm page of facts does more than an argument ever did.
Margit Aldane, co-founder and director emerita
Board chair Corwin Ashby, who joined the first Speakers Bureau training class in 2008, put it another way: "A principal who has met one Pagan parent, shaken hands, and read two pages does not need a lawyer's letter. We have spent twenty-five years making that first meeting easier."
What Has Changed, and What Has Not
In 2001 a Pagan student could be sent home for wearing a pentacle, and few administrators knew that the law forbade it. Today most school districts that contact us do so before a problem arises, to ask how to do the right thing. Pagans serve openly in the military, as hospital chaplains, and on interfaith councils. The pentacle, the Hammer of Thor, and the Awen may be placed on the headstones of veterans.
Other things have changed less. Workplace problems are still the largest share of Rights Desk requests. Parents still fear that their religion will be used against them in family court. Every October still brings a wave of coverage that treats a religion as a costume. The work is not finished.
Priorities for the Next Five Years
At its annual meeting in September, the board adopted four priorities for 2027 through 2031.
- Spanish-language editions. The Plain Facts series and the four audience guides will be published in Spanish, beginning in 2027, with review by Spanish-speaking practitioners.
- A speaker in every region. The Speakers Bureau will recruit and train volunteers in states where no in-person speaker is yet available, with a goal of 40 states by 2030.
- Elder care. As the first generation of openly Pagan adults grows old, the Chaplaincy and Institutional Access Project will prepare guidance for assisted living, memory care, and home hospice.
- Local roundtables. We will help affiliates and graduates start local interfaith roundtables on the model of Seat at the Table, with a starter guide and a year of mentoring.
Thank You
Executive Director Miriam Castellane closed the anniversary gathering with thanks: to the volunteers who give their evenings, to the teachers, nurses, editors, and chaplains who were willing to read two pages, to the neighbors of other faiths who made room at their tables, and to everyone who has supported the work with a gift.
We also remember co-founder Rev. Desmond Carrow, who died in 2016, and whose patience still sets the tone of our interfaith work.
If you would like to take part in the next twenty-five years, see Get Involved.