Greetings Friends,
I hope this notice finds you all well and eager for another year of religious education at
the Haverhill Universalist Unitarian Church. I am sending you a
registration and volunteer preference form and ask that
you mail it back to me by August 31st. It is important to know how many children and
youth we will need to plan for at each level.
Each year the Religious Education Committee and I select a theme to focus on for the year**.
We are excited to announce this year’s theme ‘Service Is Its Prayer.’ That phrase is
uttered in unison every Sunday as part of our congregation’s affirmation to the Unitarian
Universalist’s commitment to social action. This year we will explore the roots and
history of that commitment and put it into action.
Three organizations will help us with activities and opportunities primarily addressing
hunger. We’ll use ‘Food For Thought’,
a hunger curriculum authored by Project Bread and
look at hunger in our own neighborhood. We’ll also participate in
Project Heifer, a nonprofit organization working in
partnership with churches, civic groups and other organizations to help hungry families
feed themselves and care for the Earth. This group provides food and income producing
animals to projects in over 40 countries. Finally, we’ll use
‘Guest at our Table’ a program developed by the
Unitarian Universalist Service Committee (UUSC) in support of their work to protect the
human rights of people struggling against oppression and injustice.
In addition to multi-age activities and classroom discussions and projects expect to see
opportunities for family involvement. In line with our theme we will be facilitating an
increase in family involvement in our community meals program. Every other Satuday meals
are served downstairs for individuals and families in need. Many congregational members,
including some of you have planned or aided in these offerings. The youth group sponsored
one last year as well. We will enlist experienced congregational members to team up with
families who would like to get involved and sponsor a meal.
The year of ‘Service Is Its Prayer’ will culminate with what we hope will be an enormous
group of RE families and other supporters participating in the ‘Walk for Hunger.’ We’ll
even ask Rev. Steve to do a ‘blessing of the feet’ as we head off to raise money to combat
local hunger. Additionally, children and youth will be able to vote on just which animals
they would like to purchase through Project Heifer with the funds they have earned
throughout the school year. We’ll celebrate those contributions at our Children’s Sunday
Celebration in June.
Lest you worry that we are all work and little play - just to break things up a little bit
you may look forward to a few weeks of ‘MARCH MADNESS.’ More on this later but we will
stray from our ambitious year of battling hunger and do some totally fun stuff for a few
weeks in March! ! ! ! ! ! !
Soooooooooooooo --- please fill out the form, do not forget the volunteer portion and I’ll
see you soon.
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In peace and faith,
Wendy von Zirpolo
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