from the DRE

RE Summer Newsletter

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Greetings, Families!

We made it through another fabulous Fellowship year! 🙌 With some of your favorite RE activities on summer hiatus, you might be wondering what other opportunities are coming for children, youth, and families. Well, wonder no more!

Grab your calendars and get ready for summer goodness you won’t want to miss!

SUMMER EVENTS for FAMILIES

6/8 Family Hike at Lewisburg Saddle, 1-2PM, register here

6/23-27 Play to Your Values summer camp, 8:30 to 11:30 on the Fellowship Lawn

6/29 Corvallis Knights Game, 5-8ish at Goss Stadium, register here

7/6 Sunday Morning Kids’ Lemonade Stand, during and after the service

7/13 Family Hike at Fitton Green, 1-2PM, register here

8/3 Sunday Morning Sidewalk Chalk Values, during the service for kids

8/10 Family Hike and Splash at Mary’s River Natural Area, 1-3PM register here

8/16 Outdoor movie night and camping on the lawn, 9PM register here

8/24 Ice Cream Social, 7PM on Fellowship Lawn, register here

SUMMER EVENT for YOUTH

8/24 Youth kickoff river float, noon to whenever, register here

More information about our events can be found below, and info for all events  can be found at uucorvallis.org by clicking “News” in the menu bar and then selecting “RE Council” from the drop down menu.

The second Sunday of each month, June through August, we’ll be hosting a family hike. We ask that families preregister so that we know who to wait for at the trailhead, and hikes with fewer than 2 registered families will be canceled via text.

We’ll be starting with Lewisburg Saddle and a little visit to the spot my family calls Salamander Heaven because there are tons of salamanders to see. Then we’ll hit Fitton Green in July. We’ll wrap up the summer with a short walk followed by a splash in a bend in the river that has shallows for little humans and a deeper pool for our confident swimmers on the back side of Mary’s River Natural Area. 

Exciting news! The youth will have a dedicated youth room in September and they’ve chosen a wild accent wall to paint themselves. We will begin painting this Sunday and continue on Sundays until the job is done. Please have youth arrive in clothes that can get paint on them.

On the first Sunday of each month, we will have a multiage activity for the kids. In July, we’ll prepare a lemonade stand again to raise money for the charitable organization that the children vote to give to. In August, we’ll spend some time on the playground talking about our shared values and what they mean to us, and then sidewalk chalk the heck out of firwood entrance with 6 word statements about our values.

If you’re nervous about having the kids in the sanctuary again, know that you’ll have relief on the first Sunday of each month!

In addition to hikes and during-service activities, we have a couple of night time activities that are open to the entire congregation, and geared specifically toward families.

On June 29th, we’ll have a ballpark night with the Knights. Buy a ticket and join us in section 2 so we can sing and cheer and eat junk together. Register for that event HERE.

And on August 16th, we’re going to show the classic My Girl on an outdoor movie screen and you’re invited to camp on the lawn and show up to the service in your jammies the next day. Registration for the movie night with camping is HERE. You do not have to camp to come enjoy the movie!

It’s been so much fun getting to know your children over the course of this last year. They are delightful in all the ways and it’s the biggest honor to get to spend time with them week after week and get to know their quirks and gifts. 

Thank you for raising such amazing humans and for being committed to doing it in community!


Before you go, some parents have requested to be contacted about RE happenings via text. Our church management software allows for that, but only once you’ve opted in. If you are interested in receiving things like this newsletter via text, please use this form to opt into that service. And please communicate with me about how it’s going if you opt in. Breeze can be a bit fussy, so this will be a new experiment. I’ll be counting on your feedback!
 
And as always, if you’d like to stop receiving updates about Fellowship RE activities, email me and let me know.
 
Happy June, Y’all! 

UU Elevator Speeches

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Recently, a small group of Fellowship members spent several weeks crafting their elevator speeches about Unitarian Universalism. That is, they worked on how they might best describe UUism to someone in the time it takes to move between floors on an elevator. UUs often find it easier to describe what we aren’t rather than what we are, and many of us are inclined to be rather wordy, so it was no small task. And the task is never done.

The point of the elevator speech is to know what to say on the fly, so it takes practice! If you see any of these brave souls at coffee hour, help them keep their skills sharp by asking to hear their elevator speech.

A few of them will be sharing their speech in an upcoming Sunday service to hopefully inspire you to consider what you might say, if asked, “What the heck is Unitarian Universalism, anyway?” Do you have a go-to answer? If so, Skyla wants to hear it!

May RE Newsletter

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Greetings, Families!

This month’s newsletter contains some important information for parents about RE in the month and year ahead, so please read carefully! 

UPCOMING EVENTS for FAMILIES

5/4  Summer Camp Registration Deadline, more info and registration HERE.

5/11  Final Family Breakfast of the year, Mother’s Day Edition, pre-register HERE.

5/15  Final Parent Peer Support Group of the year, 6:30-8PM

5/25 Parent Feedback and Q&A session, noon on back patio

6/1 River of Life Sunday with Stepping Stone Ceremony

UPCOMING EVENTS for YOUTH

5/11 and 5/25  4:30-7 OWL regular workshops 

More information about our events can be found below, and info for all events  can be found at uucorvallis.org by clicking “News” in the menu bar and then selecting “RE Council” from the drop down menu. 

At the Fellowship, it’s our cherished tradition to celebrate children and youth as they move into new age groups with a special Stepping Stone Ceremony. Each child will receive a gift, words of affirmation, and be honored by the congregation as they journey forward in the river of life.

This year’s celebration will be especially joyful! We’re adding a new age group to our Sunday programs, renaming some of our spaces, and—wonderfully—we have more children to honor than in recent years.

If your child is entering kindergarten, 5th, or 6th grade (or their equivalents), please complete this form to register them for the ceremony. We look forward to marking this milestone together in community.

May will be our last family breakfast of the year before we break for summer. It also happens to fall on Mother’s Day! Rather than moving the date, our gracious hosts, the Polinder family, plan to make it a extra special to honor all the moms. Please plan to join us for this beloved gathering, and help with our planning by registering HERE at least a few days before. 

Family breakfast will resume in the fall!

We are excited for our children to explore our shared values through puppetry and folk tales with accomplished professional puppeteer, Linda Zittel! The last day to register for camp is May 4th and registration, as well as more detailed information, can be found HERE!

There are a lot of changes on the horizon, y’all! As we prepare to return to intergenerational services for the summer, and envision our return to the classroom wing in the fall, lots of decisions need to be made, and that means I want to hear from YOU about what has been working and what hasn’t, and what your dreams and concerns are for the return to normal Sunday morning RE, AND I want to answer your questions about our plans for room use, curriculum, and the general wellbeing of your children when they are in our care.

You are invited to bring your drinks and snacks to the benches on the back patio on Sunday, May 25th to spend coffee hour asking and sharing for the mutual benefit of all who are invested in our RE programs for children and youth. I look forward to hearing your thoughts and ideas!

Last month was loaded with fun! Our youth went to the Hult Center to experience Hamilton live on stage and their excitement was absolutely contagious! And between our JETPIG Easter and Beltane Maypole, I can honestly say we made the most of the beautiful spring sunshine and blossoms! If you have ideas for enriching activities you’d like to see take place over the summer, I want to hear them!

Everything we are able to provide in RE is only possible because volunteers generously give their time to bring these events to life for others! Our values-driven Easter experience would not have been possible without the help of Priscilla Galasso, Anya Ballinger, and Adriel Molk, all committing to help out in the weeks leading up to the event. And then, on the day-of, our fabulous young people, Sabina Giordono and Kezi Hirsch, stepped in to fill a need to talk to kids about justice and Love.

Thank you to all of our volunteers who fill roles big and small. You are the beating heart of Fellowship life!

Thanks to the tireless efforts of our Fellowship librarians, Holley Lantz and Christine Robbins, and volunteer Eric Lantz, the children’s collection in the Rita McDonald Memorial Library has been digitally cataloged and is ready for check outs!

Children (and adults who read children’s books) can now apply for a library card with this form, and use our new digital checkout kiosk. Please allow 3 days for new accounts to be set up prior to attempting to check out. 

We have many faith-specific adult books that cannot be found at the county library and we’d love to see more people making use of this resource. Feedback about the usability of the adult collection is most welcome!

Thanks so much for being part of what makes our Fellowship shine! Happy May, Y’all!

More Resources for Whole Church RE and Post-Curricular Faith Formation!

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In case you read the monthly journal, and you’re thinking Hey! I want to know more about these emerging trends in RE, I’ve got some resources for you! If you haven’t read the monthly journal yet, go check your inbox!

Joy Berry, the UUA’s children and families faith development specialist, has a nice post about whole-church RE that will get you started. After attending several of her discussion sessions, I was compelled to use her WCRE map template in planning for next year’s RE. If you look closely, you’ll spot things you’ve never seen before at UUFC!

If any of those stars spark your interest and you want to help, let me know! Mary Jo Wood and Joyce Standing are already helping with plans for our Jr. worship associates and Angel Swanson is gearing up to bring the Mosaic antiracism curriculum to adults and children. If everyone takes a small piece of the plan, our whole church connections will really shine!

This article on de-centering curriculum focuses on post-curriculum approach as a response to the wildly fluctuating Sunday attendance. Maybe you’ve noticed that some Sundays we have 5 kids at Time for All Ages and others we have 30. These are wild times! Luckily, we’re making it work and our congregation is one of the few for whom loose curriculum in Sunday morning spaces is still working (see more on that below), but we’re not out of the woods. It’s useful to take note of some of the massive cultural shifts that show up in the ways we gather. These changes will continue to shape how we show up in community and require that we have adaptive spirits if we’re in this for the long haul.

This article about how some churches are still finding success with curriculum highlights some of the reasons we’re doing so well. A major factor is financial support for staffing. Our volunteers are soul-weary and cannot commit to doing their own planning and prep. So thanks, all you pledging members! You’re making it possible for us to continue to provide structured exploration spaces in this current landscape of burnout and stress. We have been able to pivot to using curriculum with stand-alone lessons so that no one is lost when they join only sporadically. We have integrated much more social time and lightened the amount of curriculum-driven elements are in each Sunday session to keep our children’s spaces low-stakes and high nurture. We are so eager to get back into the classroom wing where we have dedicated spaces that are conducive to focused exploration as well as meaningful social connection. We’re getting a little itchy in the social hall, especially as we continue to grow.

I’m excited to hear your thoughts and ideas about whole church RE. Come talk to me about your ideas!

RE Newsletter for April

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Happy April, Families!

 I hope you all had a fabulous Spring Break and are looking forward to joining us for all of the cool things we’ve got planned for you in RE in April!

UPCOMING EVENTS for FAMILIES

4/6 Seeds of Generosity Pitch Party register HERE 

4/10 Soldiers of Conscience Film Screening (for parents) 6:30m register HERE

4/13  Family Breakfast, 8:45-9:45, pre-register HERE by 4/5

4/17 Parent Peer Support Group, 6:30-8PM

4/20 post-service Easter egg hunt

4/24 Nuts and Bolts of Conscientious Objection Q&A (parents and older children)

UPCOMING EVENTS for YOUTH

4/5 Hamilton in Eugene

4/6 Safehaven Humane Society Service @ 9:45 (wear your Earth Month Shirts!)

4/12-13 OWL overnight

4/24 Nuts and Bolts of Conscientious Objection @6:30, pre-register HERE

4/27 OWL 4:30-7

5/8 Conscientious Objection Workshop @6:30, pre-register HERE

More information about our events can be found below, and info for all events  can be found at uucorvallis.org by clicking “News” in the menu bar and then selecting “RE Council” from the drop down menu. 

With the world as it is, many parents and youth are thinking about the future of military service and the possibility of being drafted. To help all interested families become more informed about the topic and their choices, the RE Council’s Conscientious Objection Team has planned a 3-part series of learning opportunities for April and May.

We will begin with a film screening of the documentary Soldiers of Conscience. This film is most definitely not for young children, as it contains graphic footage from active war zones. It offers a balanced look at military service from those currently and formerly serving, some who are proud to serve and some who became objectors while serving. This film will serve as a grounding for the following offerings.

Next, we will have a presentation that is primarily geared toward parents who are interested in learning what they can be doing now to to help safeguard their child’s option to file as a conscientious objector upon reaching adulthood, should they choose that for themselves. This presentation will not contain graphic imagery, but the very idea of military conscription is unsettling to some, so please gauge your child’s readiness. We believe this to be appropriate for middle and high school students who are old enough to articulate their personal values around military service, and any parents interested in learning more about the topic.

And finally, we will offer a practical workshop space for youth (with parental permission) and parents to work on a packed of documents that could be used in support of a CO claim, should they wish to file as an adult. 

Please help us plan by registering HERE for any of the events you would like to attend. 

It’s that time of year again when we try to figure out how the heck Easter can/does/should fit into our Unitarian Universalist lives. Last year, we went as sustainable as possible with wooden refillable eggs and an absence of random plastic landfill fodder. It was good! This year, however, we found a cache of a gazillion plastic eggs up in a previously undiscovered storage cabinet in the classroom as we packed up for the big move out.

What’s a DRE to do? A JETPIG Easter, of course!

Children are encouraged to bring their Easter baskets, if they have them, for a post-service hunt on the lawn. This hunt will happen rain or shine because, well, we don’t have the classroom wing to lean on this year. Each egg color will correspond with one of our shared values and be traded in for objects, treats, and experiences intended to help cement the meaning of our shared values. 

We hope to make this a memorable and explicitly UU way to celebrate a day that is part of our wider cultural narrative. And because we aim to always be inclusive, if your child has dietary restrictions, please send me a reminder so that we can be sure that everyone walks away feeling uplifted!

Kylee Polinder was caught in the act of service, reminding us all that you don’t have to be on an official team or wait to be asked to serve our community! I catch Kylee being helpful quite often in these parts, preparing for the Family Breakfast or entertaining younger children while their parents chat. But on this particular Sunday, she was helping Jerry and Roberta place hymnals throughout the sanctuary. It’s a backbreaking job when one person has to do it alone, so Kylee’s selfless offer to help was much appreciated by the house managers.

Thanks, Kylee, for being a shining example of joyful service! You are amazing!

I love that we are part of a religious tradition that embraces science! Last weekend the children experimented in teams to balance a random selection of food atop a water bottle by just a toothpick. It was harder than we were expecting, and took a lot of consensus seeking and problem solving, but by the end, both teams successfully found balance.

If you have any questions about what’s happening in RE, send them my way. I’m always happy to hear your thoughts, feedback, and ideas for the future of RE!

RE Newsletter for March

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Greetings, Families!

It feels like spring has sprung and lots of fresh energy is popping up in Religious Exploration. Get your calendars ready, so you don’t miss any of the fun!

UPCOMING EVENTS for FAMILIES

3/9   Family Breakfast, 8:45-9:45, pre-register HERE by 3/5

3/20  Parent Peer Support Group, 6:30-8PM 

4/6 Seeds of Generosity Pitch Party, noon in the Foyer, pre-register HERE by 3/12

UPCOMING EVENTS for YOUTH

3/2, 3/16   OWL workshops

3/14-16 Youth Coast Retreat, pre-register HERE by 3/2

4/6 Youth Service at Heartland Humane 9:45 to noon, pre-register HERE by 3/28 

More information about our events can be found below, and info for all events  can be found at uucorvallis.org by clicking “News” in the menu bar and then selecting “RE Council” from the drop down menu.

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I genuinely hope that all of our families will choose to participate in this very cool program made possible by an endowment from the Bob Ozretich Memorial Fund. Children, youth, and families in any combination (teams, pairs, solo, whole family) will make a Shark-Tank style pitch for how they would spend $100 to generously benefit our local community, and then all partiers will vote on a winner, who will receive $100 cash to give in alignment with their pitch. Everyone who pitches will be entered into a drawing to win $50 in cash to give in a manner of their choosing, and everyone who attends will get a pizza and cake lunch in the social hall after the winners are announced. Please consider helping your child work on a pitch to make either as individuals or as a family, and then register each pitch they plan to make HERE so we know how much food to buy. You do not have to make pitch to participate.  Still use the registration link but indicate you will not be “pitching.”

In preparation for this event, Russ Karrow will be sharing with the children and youth during RE on March 2nd about his experience with the local Power of 100 program that does a larger scale version of our Seeds of Generosity program. 

We have the funds to offer three rounds of this pitch-party style giving program, so those who don’t win have two more chances, which we hope will foster the qualities of resilience and persistence in all who participate. Winners will be asked to share an account of their giving to inspire others to participate. 

On February 28th, the youth worked collaboratively to design this year’s Earth Month t-shirt. I will be putting in orders for shirt for all youth on March 5th, so please email me your youth’s t-shirt size preference. I will make an effort to order for everyone, and if I don’t hear back from you, I will make a guess at sizing for your youth and err on the larger side. 

On April 6th, youth should be dropped off at the Heartland Humane Society at 9:45 for a brief chalice lighting and service project. We will likely be doing some combination of cleaning, feeding, sorting donations of food, folding laundry, etc., and will end with socializing time, AKA playing with the pets! Youth will be delivered back to the Fellowship around 12:15. Please pre-register for this service project HERE by March 23rd.

It’s that time of year again! The youth will be heading to the beautiful Wavecatcher Beach House right on the beach in Waldport for 2 nights of community building and worship. Youth will cook together, play together, and write their own worship service collaboratively before being delivered back to the Fellowship as the service lets out (or as close to it as can be managed) on Sunday morning. 

Pre-registration is requested HERE no later than 3/2. If cost is an obstacle, please register anyway and we’ll cover the fee. This is the most anticipated and highly bonding gathering of the year, so we want everyone to be able to participate!

We’ve had a lot of fun opportunities in RE over the past month! Weather allowed the younger children to go outside most Sundays, and a lot of our Bluey lessons included activities with balloons as we explored friendship, caretaking, and patience. Balloons are ALWAYS a hit! 

Some of our youth traveled to Eugene for an overnight and participated in games, service and worship while we got to explore ways that other groups “do church.” And thanks to a generous gift from Joyce Marvel-Benoist, a small group of youth had a Splatter Party at SplatterBox in Albany and got super messy while making a piece of collaborative art for our new youth room when the classroom wing reopens. Thanks, Joyce!

I was so impressed by our very own Raya and Mirielle during the overnight trip to Eugene! These two spent a substantial amount of time in the kitchen cooking for the burrito bar dinner and washing breakfast dishes in a commercial kitchen. They also helped decorate the social hall for Valentines Day and participated in some technological troubleshooting when the movie set-up wasn’t cooperating. At every turn, they were exercising their skills in community building and service! It was a proud day for Corvallis to be represented so beautifully while visiting a neighboring congregations.

If you have any questions about what’s happening in RE, send them my way. And if, for some strange reason, you ever want to be removed from the monthly RE Newsletter list, let me know. Wishing you a joyful March!

Sensory Break Kits

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We are aware that the new confines and acoustics of our Sunday morning building use are less than ideal, and for some, quite overstimulating. While we lack the space to create a quiet zone on Sunday mornings, we have constructed 2 Sensory Break kits, which will be stored in yellow bags — one will hang on the back of the rocking chair in the gallery of the sanctuary and the other will be in the Spirit Play cart in the social hall.

Any time you or your child need a quiet moment or support in recovering from overstimulation, you are invited to grab one of these bags for as long as you need. While some of these items have toy-like appeal, they have been carefully selected for the support of those with exceptional sensory needs. We ask that they not be used as sanctuary entertainment so that they are available when the need arises.

Each kit contains sound cancelling headphones that can be adjusted for adult and child fit, and a variety of items for visual and tactile distraction.

This is part of our ongoing effort to be more welcoming and inclusive, recognizing that a wide range of needs come with us into the Fellowship each week. If you would like to know more about these efforts, please contact Skyla King-Christison.

Free Book for Families

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With the return of the Our Whole Lives program (OWL) for middle school, conversations are bubbling up all around the Fellowship about how we were taught (or not taught) about relationships and our bodies. Most often they center on how we want to do better for the next generation than was done for us. While we do not have the volunteer power, at this time, to offer OWL for younger ages, parents of elementary aged children are not without resources.

I am pleased to share that beginning in January, we will have several offerings for parents as they navigate questions about changing bodies, relationships, and identities.

  • Free copies of It’s Perfectly Normal are available to any Fellowship family that requests one.
  • A limited supply of smaller resources like the Askable Parent pamphlet will be available in the library.
  • Beyond reading materials, now you are able to check out a set of anatomically correct dolls that are complete with pubic hair, working wombs, and other surprising details.

We want our parents to feel well supported, not just with peer groups and pastoral care, but with concrete resources that you can access as the need arises. To receive a copy of It’s Perfectly Normal, ask questions about the check out process, or share ideas about other supportive resources we should add to our library, email me at dre@uucorvallis.org or find me on a Sunday morning so we can chat.

You Can Help Our Families Engage!

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You’ve probably noticed that there are more and more families in our midst each week. Hooray! We love seeing faces of all ages in our sanctuary. With this uptick in family participation, we are experiencing a higher demand for childcare. At the same time, our list of able Grandfolks is dwindling due to illness and factors such as night driving.

A parent’s ability to engage in small group ministry and special events plays a large role in determining whether the family unit as a whole can continue to participate in the life of the Fellowship. If you are an adult of any age who has been with the Fellowship for more than 6 months, please take a moment to consider whether you would be able to give even one hour a month to care for children so that parents can have that time to commit to their own spiritual enrichment.

All Grandfolks will be interviewed, trained, and complete a background check before service.

If you want to help families stay engaged, please contact Skyla at dre@uucorvallis.org for more information.

Thank you for supporting RE!

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Children are lined up at a table covered in winter hats and gloves.
Children are lined up at a table covered in winter hats and gloves.

Thank you so much to everyone who contributed winter accessories, hothands, and cash to support our children and youth service project of creating winter care kits. Having some small action to take when you see a need is one way that we can overcome feelings of hopelessness, and put our shared values of generosity, interdependence, and love into action!

Thanks to your generous donations, everyone in Spirit Play and YRUU created a winter care kit to keep in their car to offer when they cross paths with someone in need. Each kit contained a warm hat, gloves, and 2 ten-hour hothands pouches, along with a note of love and encouragement in a waterproof bag. Some of them also included scarves and artwork from the children. In all, 21 kits were made and a few leftover items were given to the Corvallis Daytime Drop-in Center.

We couldn’t have pulled this off without the support of our amazing community of adults, so thank you!