With all that is escalating in the world around us, I want to provide a few resources that families have found helpful as they navigate the highly personal decisions about how to talk to their children and youth about the terrible things happening in the world. If you have others to add that you feel would be useful to our Fellowship families, please send them to dre@uucorvallis.org
A primary skill we can all develop and use as our children’s first and primary spiritual leaders is developing our capacity for self-regulation. Whatever it is we need to talk to our children about, whether it’s the news or their chores, the potential for positive outcomes is higher when we enter into it with awareness of our own emotions and how they’re participating in the way we are showing up with our children. Without realizing it, the stress we carry in our own bodies can easily spill into our interactions, word choices, patience levels, and more. Dr. Amber Thornton has loads of resources on self-regulation for parents. Below is just one of her many offerings on the topic.
The Fred Rogers Institute has offered a great PDF about talking with children about difficult things in the news. You can access the full 2-page guide by clicking HERE.
“When children bring up something frightening, it’s helpful right away to ask them what they know about it. We often find that their fantasies are very different from the actual truth. What children probably need to hear most from us adults, is that they can talk with us about anything and that we will do all we can to keep them safe in any scary time.
For an at-a-glance list of things to keep in mind for developmentally appropriate conversations at every age and stage, check out this one-sheet from the Children’s Network and Early Risers.
And finally, the National Child Traumatic Stress Network has offered a guide to Talking to Children About the Shooting, which can be accessed HERE.
My door is always open if you find yourself in need of additional resources or thought partnership through this moment in history. I also encourage all of our parents to take advantage of the Parent Connection Dinner on the second Thursday of each month. Strengthening your connections to the village and having a designated place to talk about what’s hard with people who are fielding similar questions and facing similar challenges can make a world of difference!
“Dear world, I am excited to be alive in you, and I am thankful for another year.” ~Charlotte Eriksson
Greetings, Families!
I hope your winter holidays were warm and cozy! A new year is unfolding before us, and we’re starting off with a little ease after the holiday hustle. Don’t miss these sweet opportunities for connection and reflection in January!
UPCOMING EVENTS:
1/8 Parent Connection Dinner @ 6:30 (register HERE one time, to get reminders)
1/11 Family Breakfast @ 8:45 (register HERE and bring a dish if you are able)
1/25 Heartland Humane service project for OMG!
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 OMG! youth group will serve at the Heartland Humane Society on January 25th. Specific times and registration details have been emailed directly to parents. This is always a favorite activity each year, so be sure to register by 1/18! Youth without a permission slip will not be permitted to serve.
While there, the youth will assist with routine care of the animals and facility, and wrap up with some animal socialization time. Please make sure your child wears work clothes that can get dirty. The attending youth advisors will be Steve Ferrell and Mark Aron. Please send questions to Skyla.
Thanks to a dedicated group of moms, the Parent Connection Dinner, formerly known as the Parent Peer Support Group, is no longer a potluck! We have enough soups prepped to get us through the end of the year! Parents are invited to show up with their dishes and enjoy soup, bread, and desserts along with meaningful facilitated discussion on topics relevant to parenting and mutual support. You are invited to register one time, and then you’ll receive the automated reminder texts and emails each month. You can help us decide how much to prepare by clicking RSVP button on the reminder to let us know you’re coming. As always, free childcare will be provided in a nearby room.
Thank you for showing up and supporting our 4th-6th graders at the Holiday Fair! They successfully sold out of magnets, post cards, and paintings and raised a nice chunk of money to spend toward the many projects they’re hoping to do together this year.
It was amazing to have eight of our bold and creative young people perform in a Sunday service this year! The gratitude and awe keeps rolling in from all corners of Fellowship life, as so many were moved by the story and song that was shared.
Your offering of time and courage meant more than you might imagine to those in our community who were feeling alone during the winter holidays, or who have limited interactions with younger people. I can’t tell you how many people have said something along the lines of, “Their singing! It was so beautiful and so moving! Exactly what my soul needed!”
So thank you, parents and kids, for giving of yourselves and your time so generously. It was such a gift to share worship with you in that way!
Our amazing OMG! member, Elizabeth, reached out and asked if she could offer her talent for face painting at our annual Holiday Fair. She spent five hours sitting at the kids’ table painting faces for free, and connecting with people of all ages. I love that she knows her gifts, identified a place where she could share them, and reached out to make it happen!
Several times, I watched children who were bored from shopping with their parents light up when they saw that there was something for them, and then their parents light up when they saw that it was free!
Thank you, Elizabeth, for being exactly who you are and for sharing that with us!
If you or your child has a gift just waiting to be shared, let me know how we can support you in sharing it!
Y’all, 2025 was a wild ride in RE!
We spent the first half of the year without any classrooms to meet in, and still managed to pull off a one-room school house style Sunday morning offering for children in the social hall, a youth group in the library, and the first round of OWL (Our Whole Lives, comprehensive sex and sexuality class) since the pandemic. This would not have been possible without the tireless work of a dozen dedicated RE leaders who were willing to keep showing up in the most challenging of circumstances. And they were so, so challenging!
In the back half of the year we hosted a children’s summer camp, hired two more youth staff, moved back into the classroom wing, said goodbye to Rev. McAllister and welcomed Rev. McGee, added a 4th classroom and lots of new RE leaders to keep our classrooms thriving, and closed out the year with our Winter Solstice pageant!
I can’t think of a better way to have spent a year in community! I am so grateful to get to spend my time working with you and your children, and I’m excited for us to make 2026 a joyful and hope-filled time to be at the Fellowship together!
“How many lessons of faith and beauty we should lose, if there were no winter in our year!” – Thomas Wentworth Higginson
Greetings, Families!
I hope your Thanksgiving weekend was full of all the things you love most! It’s time to turn our hearts toward all the good things that December has to offer. Grab your calendar and let’s have a little look ahead!
UPCOMING EVENTS:
12/6 Seeker Space Kids & kids table at the Holiday Fair! 9-3 @ UUFC!
12/14 NO Family Breakfast this month!
12/11 Parent Peer Support Group meal prep night. Register ONCE Here!
12/21 Solstice Pageant during the service NO RE!
12/28 All ages Poetry service with activity kit available for kids NO RE!
Post Holiday Break for Parents: date, time, and registration information were emailed directly to parents. Check your inboxes!
***Childcare is still available in the Rainbow Room on no RE Sundays!
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.
Our 4th-6th graders in the Seeker Space have been making crafts and art for their booth at the Holiday Fair on December 6th! They learned about Entrepreneurship from our very own Rachel McGrath and have role-played sales etiquette with their advisors. They are ready to see you at the Holiday fair with their selection of magnets, Perler bead ornaments, and one-of-a-kind paintings! Come say hi and support their efforts!
If your Seeker Space kiddo isn’t signed up for a time slot yet, please pop over to register them HERE ASAP!
For the protection of our children, we will not post the date and time of children’s events where their parents and guardians are not remaining on the property. Full information regarding the Post-Holiday Break was sent directly to parents’ inboxes. Please check your email for the December newsletter for the date, time, and registration information. OR, if you are a parent or guardian of a school aged child, you can email me (Skyla) directly at dre@uucorvallis.org for more information.
In an effort to honor feedback from our families, we decided to do something a little different for the winter holidays this year. We will be hosting a Solstice Pageant featuring our children and youth at the center during an intergenerational Sunday morning service instead of holding a separate Christmas Eve service for families with children. This all-ages service will be on December 21st, and while our speaking roles are all spoken for, we do have room for a couple more woodland creatures if any of you missed the news in last month’s newsletter and have children who have an inner squirrel or raccoon just waiting to shine.
The Christmas Eve service is open to all, and we will have electric candles available for children and those who wish to participate but prefer not to handle fire. We will also have some soft toys in the social hall in case your littles need a little more room to burn off some steam while you listen to the service.
The following Sunday, December 28th, will be a second all-ages service, with a poetry theme. Children are invited to participate in all the ways the adults do, and I will have a poetry-themed collaborative art project for the kids to quietly work on together, in case the poetry isn’t quite their thing.
During both the solstice and poetry services, there will still be childcare available in the Rainbow Room for registered children.
Thank you to all who responded to my Coming-of-Age feeler email! Unfortunately, we did not get enough of a response to confidently plan a CoA program for this year. If you let that email slip through the cracks and want to immediately contact me, there’s a chance we hit our minimum needed youth to make a go of it, but…
On my recent trip to the Liberal Religious Educators Association Fall Conference, I connected with many DREs from across the continent and learned that the trend in Coming of Age spaces, since returning to full operations post-pandemic, is increasingly to hold a larger CoA experience once every four years during high school rather than every other year for middle school. The reasons for this shift include the smaller group sizes that are still being experienced nationwide, as well as a shift in developmental readiness for the spiritual content of the program after our kids spent well over a year out of community, both socially and religiously.
I share this to say, do not worry that your child will miss their Coming of Age experience. I will not let that happen! This program is central to what it means to grow up UU! We will be thoughtful about how we evaluate and implement this shift, if that turns out to be the direction we need to move. And I invite you to be in conversation with me about your child’s spiritual and developmental needs as we evaluate this potential shift in programmatic rhythms.
Those of you I’ve discussed this possible shift with have all said, “But what about OWL?” I know we have alternated these two programs annually as far back as anyone can remember. OWL has a wider reach and a waitlist of nonUUs hoping to get in, so as long as we can maintain an adequate number of trained OWL facilitators, there is no reason to shift away from our regular OWL schedule. If you are interested in becoming an OWL facilitator and helping to keep this vital program available to our community, come talk to me!
This past Sunday, we had our very first Children’s Chapel since the pandemic! Those of you who are newer UUs might be wondering what the heck a Children’s Chapel even is.
Whenever there’s a 5th Sunday of the month (about 4 times per year), instead of having our regular age-segregated RE groups, we have one larger group with all of the children and youth except those in the Rainbow Room. They’re a bit wiggly and disinterested in what we’ve got going on in chapel.
As I explained to the kids, each time we gather for a children’s chapel, we will have three primary elements: shared singing, some kind of seasonal ritual, and some form of service. These are three practices that are vital to our community life. Shared singing lifts our spirits, rituals allow us to honor and witness one another and the earth in all our seasons, and service reinforces our interconnectedness with one another and our wider community.
In November, our children’s chapel included learning and analyzing the song What We Need is Here, inspired by the Wendell Berry poem, Wild Geese, which was read for us by Michi Araki. Then we silently processed through electric candlelight to each gather a piece of bread and a cup of apple cider. In our quiet circle, we engaged in a mindfulness practice of thinking of the wide range of people and resources that went into us holding the food that we were about to share. From soil to farmers, millers to road construction crews, power grids and bank software, these kids thought of so many people and skills that made it possible for us to have bread and cider, including all in our Fellowship who give generously so that we can have a comfortable RE budget.
When we had gobbled up all of the bread and had our fill of cider, we assembled winter care kits for each child to have in their car for when they cross paths with someone living outdoors. We talked about safety, and not approaching unknown adults without a trusted adult with them. We talked about what it would be like to have wet feet and have no way of getting dry in the bitter cold of winter. And we learned about the cool ways that family members of some of our kids already keep resources in their cars and bikes for those in need who cross their paths.
It was a lovely return to our regular practice of Children’s Chapel, and I’m already looking forward to next time!
If you have any unmet needs for support, unanswered questions about how or why we do what we do in RE, please reach out any time! Our offerings exist because families share their dreams and needs, and we rely on your partnership! And if you ever want to be removed from our email list, just shoot me a note and I’ll make it so. May we hold Love at the center of all we do together!
In this tender season of remembrance, we are approaching our traditional Ancestor Tree with gentle intention and a small change. In an effort to care well for our grounds and to make this ritual more accessible to all, we’ve reimagined where and how we gather the names of those we carry in our hearts.
You are invited to visit the table in the classroom wing, just outside the RE office, where you will find an altar box, paper leaves, and pencils. On a leaf, write the name of someone or something that has meant something and has died. A mentor, a teacher, a beloved pet, a family member, a forest, a river, a place that held you. Let this be a moment to name what matters. Add your leaf to the trees placed on either side of the altar box—our new Ancestor Trees.
There, you will also find a basket of blessings for what was real and lost. You are welcome to take one. Read it there in a quiet moment, or tuck it into your pocket for a day when you need to remember that you are not alone. That love persists. That absence, though real, is never the full story.
Please linger to read the names others have offered. Let yourself be moved by the web of connections among us—the invisible threads of people and places that have shaped the ones we now hold in Beloved Community. These names are echoes of resilience, tenderness, and transformation. They remind us that we are always standing on sacred ground.
And as you reflect, consider this: What does it mean to become an ancestor? To live in such a way that one day, someone might speak your name with love and longing?
This is not just a ritual of memory. It’s a quiet invitation to live with greater intention, greater courage, and greater tenderness, for those who came before, those who walk beside us now, and those who will follow.
“October, baptize me with leaves! Swaddle me in corduroy and nurse me with split pea soup. October, tuck tiny candy bars in my pockets and carve my smile into a thousand pumpkins. O autumn! O teakettle! O grace!” ― Rainbow Rowell , Attachments
Greetings, Families!
The soggy, foggy season of all things cozy is finally upon us! Between sipping soup and reading Pumpkinheads to the kids, please take a moment to catch up on your Religious Exploration news and add some events to your calendar.
Please note that this is the last month that this newsletter will be sent to last year’s registered families. If you are not sure whether you have registered your child for this new year in RE, please reach out to me, and I’ll help get you all squared away so that you don’t miss any of the fun!
UPCOMING EVENTS:
10/12 Monthly Family Breakfast is Back! register HERE
10/16 Parent Peer Support Group is Back! Register HERE
10/25 Youth Overnight: registration information was sent home and to parents’ inboxes.
10/26 Teams and Councils Trick or Treat (wear your costumes to service!)
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.
You want to know what’s going on at the Fellowship and what different groups there are to be a part of. Your kids want to have some fun and wear their costumes. Okay, let’s face it. You want to have fun too! That’s why we’re hosting the annual Teams and Councils Trick-or-Treat event after the service on October 26th.
Wear your costumes to the service and plan to hang out after to wander around and check out the information, goodies, and games presented by many of the wonderful groups, teams, and councils that keep us up to good trouble at the Fellowship and beyond!
Registered OMG! youth and their friends are invited to this year’s Fall Overnight at UUFC! As always, we’ve invited youth from Eugene, Salem, and Willamette Falls congregations to join us, but it’s still unknown as to whether they have enough volunteer support to get their youth here this year.
Please ASAP, but no later than October 8th. Registration information went home with youth and was included in the email version of this newsletter. If you have not received it and are interested in registering yout youth please reach out to Skyla at dre@uucorvallis.org.
We will have a pizza dinner, and social hour, followed by a trip to the Melon Patch corn maze, and then come warm up with a candelight worship before bed. More details can be found in the Registration link!
By request, we took September off of our regular family gatherings, but it’s time to get back into the swing of things with the return of the Family Breakfast and the Parent Peer Support Group.
The Breakfast will be sticking with its 2nd Sunday Schedule this year, so please come join us on the 12th at 8:45. Registering each month helps us plan, but please come even if you forget to register.
The Parent Peer Support Group (with free childcare!) will start on the 3rd Thursday in October, and will be on 2nd Thursdays beginning in November. You don’t want to miss this first session back on October 16th! Register anew with this link to be kept up to date on changes regarding this group.
All of our Sunday morning groups for school-aged children are using the Mosaic antiracism curriculum this year. One of the upcoming lessons involves the use of candy. Because we don’t generally hand out candy in RE, I want to give our parents a heads up and a chance to share their family norms and concerns around sweets so that we can make sure all children are included and their dietary preferences are honored. These lessons will be taking place in Spirit Play on October 19th and in the Seeker Space on November 9th.
Kids will sanitize their hands and then sort and handle various candies throughout the lesson. Each child will be invited to taste 2 pieces of candy during class time, and the rest will be divvied up and sent home with consenting parents at pickup. If you have questions or concerns, please reach out to me!
I’m so pleased to share that a new RE team has formed with the focus on safety! Below is a copy of what they shared in the monthly journal. Because there is information specifically for parents, I want to make sure you have a chance to encounter it, even if you aren’t in the habit of reading the journal.
We are fortunate to have a growing Religious Exploration program here at UUFC! To support this program, we have formed a Safe Congregations Support Team made up of parents and other members of our fellowship. Its purpose is to bolster the safety of all who engage with Religious Exploration programs by partnering with the Director of Religious Exploration to support uniform policy and procedure implementation and execution, consult on ambiguous background check results or interpersonal conflicts that have the potential to disrupt RE community-building efforts, and lovingly invite RE volunteers and participants back into covenant when our safety policies and procedures have been violated.
As part of our role of fostering the safest environment possible for our UUFC families, we would like to remind parents and guardians that RE staff and volunteers do not supervise children during the coffee hour after the service or at any time they are not engaged directly in RE programs. Please stay mindful of your children’s whereabouts and safety during social gatherings and bear in mind that, as an inclusive community that values transformation, we welcome strangers and individuals with diverse histories into our midst.
If you have a concern that needs to be addressed by our team, please contact Kyle Cupp, chairperson of the RE Safe Congregations Support team. Additionally, if you are passionate about safety and have skills and time to share, we’d love to hear from you!
If you have any unmet needs for support, unanswered questions about how or why we do what we do in RE, please reach out any time! Our offerings exist because families share their dreams and needs, and we rely on your partnership!
May we hold Love at the center of all we do together in this new RE and beyond!
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 Canceled
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.
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!
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!
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!
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!
