Calling herself "Aly," Episcopal Church Bishop Geralyn Wolf spent the month of January on the streets, befriending the homeless and sleeping and eating in shelters.
Her goals: To learn firsthand what it's like to scrape by, temporarily trade administration for hands-on ministry and put her pulpit words into action.
The experiment won praise from Rhode Island clergy and Episcopal bishops elsewhere.
Now off the streets, she's still trying to understand and find solutions to the plight of the poor.
"I have this power as the bishop of the diocese, but so often I'm bound up in pettiness," she told The Providence Journal.
"People are fascinated by someone in that position doing something like this ... but they are also really trying to figure out how they feel about it," said Noreen Shawcross, director of Rhode Island's Coalition for the Homeless.
Shawcross said Wolf's experience changed some perceptions about the homeless. "People aren't so much talking about the hardships and injustices, but that she was able to be friends with these people," she said.
In 1996, Wolf, who was raised Jewish, became the second woman to head a U.S. Episcopal diocese.