Ames Community Snapshot, 2025-2026
Excerpts from the Local Spiritual Assembly’s Annual reports, shared by the LSA, entered August 2026
From the 2025 LSA Annual Report:
The community actively participated in a Central Iowa Conference held January 18, 2025 in Des Moines as part of a series of conferences called for by the National Spiritual Assembly in its letter of September 30, 2024. Ames friends contributed to planning the conference, inviting friends, assisting with the programming and providing funding for the event. Of the 57 attendees at the conference four Bahá’ís and three children were from Ames as well as two friends of the Faith families which included four adults and one youth and five children. Overall the conference attracted participants from 4 clusters and 14 communities across central Iowa.
The community is actively supporting devotional spaces, both family focused and more broadly based. Also supported are study circles (a Book 1, Book 2, Book 5, Book 8, and Book 11, with a Book 13 having been completed this past year), one children’s class and two junior youth groups, one in Ames and one in Roland… Learning how to nurture and support new friends to support these activities is an ongoing challenge.
Youth nights consisting primarily of friends of the Faith are held on a weekly basis, and some of these youth are engaged in several community building activities to some degree, including devotional meetings, study circles, children’s classes and the junior youth group. Some of these youth also attend Regional wide youth institute camps held in Kansas City and whose purpose is to advance service through intensive weekend or in some cases week long study and practice involved in Training Institute courses.
Many of the Bahá’í friends and their children support the cluster’s quarterly reflection meetings, one focused on the general advancement and development of the cluster,
Holy Days are celebrated with some of them designed to especially welcome families and friends of the Faith, such as Naw-Ruz, the Twin Holy Days, and Ayyám-i-Há. Numbers of attendees have ranged from the 30s to the 40s, with well more than half to two-thirds of the participants friends of the Faith.
The Bahá’í community is involved in Ames community life in various ways, including support of the Good Neighbor initiative which is an interfaith assistance group, the Faith-based Martin Luther King, Jr interfaith observance, and at least one individual’s participation in local service opportunities.
From the 2026 LSA Annual Report:
The community is learning how to support each other in the work of the Nine Year Plan. The results of significant relationship- and community-building activities in one particular neighborhood are manifesting in an increased number of participants and activities. Attendance at Holy Day observances ranged from a handful of friends at some gatherings to 60 participants at this year’s Naw-Rúz celebration, 41 of whom were friends of the Faith. Further, about half of the attendees were children.
Devotional gatherings continue to provide meaningful opportunities for fellowship and outreach. In addition to several family devotions, the community supported two devotional gatherings that attracted friends of the Faith, one of which included as many as 25 attendees. An “A Better World” concert with musical guests Colby Jeffers (Phoenix, AZ) and Brian (Kansas City, MO) was hosted in nearby Story City that attracted more than 50 participants, of which half are friends of the Faith.
Also supported are study circles (a Book 1, Book 2, Book 3, Book 5, Book 8, and two Book 11s) and children’s classes. There is potential in Ames for starting one more children’s classes and another junior youth group in the near future. Learning how to nurture and support new friends to support these activities is a crucial area of learning in which we are beginning to engage.
Members of the Ames Bahá’í community also served the work of the Plan beyond the local level. During the year, believers from Ames served in regional and cluster capacities, including as a Huqúq’u’lláh representative for Iowa, on the Regional Training Institute Board, on the Regional Bahá’í Council, in seeker response, as secretary of the Area Teaching Committee, and as an institute coordinator. The community also supported activities across the cluster, including additional study circles, some held on Zoom, a children’s class and junior youth group in nearby Story City, and Regional Youth Institute camps.
In November, in collaboration with the Des Moines Spiritual Assembly, we were honored to host the Regional Council’s meeting that also involved collaboration and consultation. Included in the day-long activities were home visits, reflection on those home visits, and consultation between the Spiritual Assemblies, Regional Council, and Auxiliary Board Members, together with an opportunity to break bread together.
Finally, the Bahá’í community continues to be involved in Ames community life in various ways, including support of the Good Neighbor initiative (an interfaith assistance group), the faith-based Martin Luther King, Jr interfaith observance, and at least one individual’s participation in local service opportunities.
