As if the prospect of meeting and questioning Barack Obama before thousands of grassroots community activists wasn’t exciting enough, Rev. Katrina Foster pastor of Fordham Evangelical Lutheran Church was assigned another little task at the Heartland Presidential Forum in Des Moines, Iowa last week — giving the opening prayer.

A bishop who was scheduled to give the opening prayer couldn’t do it at the last minute, so Foster was tapped for that honor, too.

The event, called the Heartland Forum, featuring 2,000 potential Iowan caucus goers and another 1,600 grassroots community activists from around the country, was an attempt to stitch together a new national constituency for issues the activists feel are given short shrift. The Forum launched the Campaign for Community Values.

“We are replacing the old ‘family values’ [which] was a code word for defining people who we are against,” Foster said in an interview upon her return. “And ‘community values’ defines what we are in favor of.”

That includes universal healthcare, fixing the “subprime debacle [so] people can keep their homes,” a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants and making sure “that in actuality no child is left behind.”

Five presidential candidates participated including Obama and Senators Chris Dodd, John Edwards and Hillary Clinton (who appeared via satellite), and Congressman Dennis Kucinich.

Foster, who attended the event as a member of the Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition, asked Obama whether his healthcare plan — which includes a mix of private and government insurance — was the way to go, since private insurance isn’t always cost-effective and does not cover everyone. Obama said that, if he were starting from scratch, he’d prefer a public system known as single-payer, but because he wanted to cover everyone soon, it made more sense to give people a choice while expanding government programs like SCHIP (state children’s health insurance programs) and negotiating with drug companies for lower prices.

All the candidates, with the exception of Hillary Clinton, agreed to tackle immigration policy in their first 100 days, Foster said. She added that they all “committed to meeting with us to shape their agenda in the first 100 days.” Obama even said he’d meet with representatives of the group during his transition.

Foster said the gathering was refreshing because “it is the first time that live candidates came face to face with regular citizens, not pre-recorded YouTube videos and paid talking heads. We were just everyday people.”

She said she hasn’t made up her mind about whom to support and is encouraging people to listen to all the candidates and not just support who has the most name recognition.

But that doesn’t mean Foster wasn’t wowed by meeting a potential next president of the United States.

“Are you kidding?” she said. “I got to shake Obama’s hand twice! That’s better than shaking Elvis’ hand.”

Ed. note: Video of Katrina Foster questioning Sen. Obama is available on the West Bronx Blog (www.westbronxnews. blogspot.com). More video is available at www.movementvisionlab.org and more information about the Campaign for Community Values is at www.communitychange.org.