SFH Board Members: Verleah Koslowski, TSSF, Janice Syedullah, TSSF, and Janet Minella-Didier.
Janice initiated the cataloguing of the collection. She was succeeded on the board by Verleah, who continued the work with the help of Janet, who lived in New London. They were succeeded by Alexandra Clancy and Andrew Lopez, working with Anne Scheibner during the transition period from 2024-2026.
Given the over 4,000 books in the various collections, different collections were located in the Hermitage and Victory House conference room, as well as the main library site (Emmett’s former study) at 30 Broad. Andrew has worked tirelessly with Anne to prepare the catalogue in order to be able to turn over the stewardship of the collections to Hearing Youth Voices and their residential program.
St. Francis House had a noteworthy collection of books in the areas of social justice, theology, and poetry. Here is the pdf of the collection as of June, 2026.
You could also contact the Archives of the Episcopal Church in Connecticut at https://www.episcopalct.org/archives/ for the full list.
Anyone interested in visiting/borrowing books from the Library should visit the Hearing Youth Voices website (hearingyouthvoices.com) for an updated catalogue and further information.
In addition, there is a rich video archive.
You can find the full collection at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7YDC29pttu913mGEI63pQQ and another video at https://youtu.be/-UQonMavL6E.
St. Francis House also produced three publications, which are available for public use for educational purposes. Greg Farr, Archivist for the Episcopal Church in Connecticut (ECCT), generously digitalized all three publications:
Wild Geese Flying South: New Poems by Emmett Jarrett (2005)
Broad Street Blues: A Reader in Radical Discipleship. Edited by Emmett Jarrett and
Sarah Jarrett (2010)
To Catch A Wave: New and Selected Poems by Emmett Jarrett. Edited by Anne
Scheibner and James Coleman with Foreword by Dick Louries (2016)
A few members of the extended community came together to share their gifts for organizing and archiving to polish the collection into a working lending and reference library. Given the number of books the work involved expansion into the Hermitage and Victory House spaces.
Browse and search the St. Francis House Library catalog