weekly announcements

RE Newsletter for Janaury

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“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! 

Happy New Year, Beloveds!

Justice Theatre Auditions, 1/26-1/27

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The Justice Theatre Team is gearing up for its 8th annual production! This year’s show will take place on Friday and Saturday, March 27th and 28th, and the team will be staging 12 Angry Jurors, a play by Reginald Rose that will be directed by Sarika Rao. Proceeds from the production will go to the Campaign to Support Equal Justice in Oregon, a legal aid organization that provides free civil legal services to low-income and senior Oregonians.

Auditions will take place on Monday and Tuesday, January 26th and 27th at 7pm at the UUFC. NO experience is necessary to try out for these productions, and it’s a great way to make social connections while lending your talents to a great cause. Auditions will consist of reading excerpts of the script with other actors, and it will be low-key and lots of fun!

These auditions are for an unpaid, amateur performance opportunity. For maximum accessibility, this is a memorization-optional production—actors will have the option to carry some or all of their lines in a notebook or on a clipboard prop if they so choose.

If you have any questions about the team, the production, or the audition process, please reach out to justice.theater@uucorvallis.org.

About the play

A 19-year-old man has just stood trial for the fatal stabbing of his father. “He doesn’t stand a chance,” mutters the guard as the 12 jurors are taken into the bleak jury room. It looks like an open-and-shut case—until one of the jurors begins opening the others’ eyes to the facts. “This is a remarkable thing about democracy,” says the foreign-born juror, “that we are notified by mail to come down to this place—and decide on the guilt or innocence of a person; of a man or woman we have not known before. We have nothing to gain or lose by our verdict. We should not make it a personal thing.” But personal it is, with each juror revealing their own character as the various testimonies are re-examined, the murder is re-enacted and a new murder threat is born before their eyes! Tempers get short, arguments grow heated. The jurors’ final verdict and how they reach it t will electrify the audience and keep them on the edge of their seats.

About this year’s beneficiary

Learn more about the supported organization, the Campaign to Support Equal Justice in Oregon, by CLICKING HERE: https://cej-oregon.org/

About the Company

Justice Theatre @ the UUFC is a community theatre venture aimed at staging small-scale productions with pay-what-you-will performances supporting social justice causes. Past beneficiaries have included the ACLU, the Corvallis Cold Weather Mens Shelter, CARDV, and the Mid-Willamette Trans Support Network. Our mission is to create theatre that fosters discussion about the world around us, to make theatre that is completely open and accessible to audience members of any income level, and to use performance to generate donations for good causes. The company is part of the Fellowship’s larger commitment to justice work under the auspices of the Justice Council. Organized by the Justice Theatre Team, the Fellowship generally stages one production every year or so with amateur actors who donate their time (which helps to maximize profits for donations!), and these productions are intended to comment on something going wrong in the world while raising money to help right that wrong.

Childcare is available!

Free childcare can usually be arranged for any Fellowship event by using this link 1-2 weeks prior to the event.

Kirtan With Jaya Lakshmi, 1/16

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Join Jaya Lakshmi and her band for an uplifting evening of mantra, kirtan and original sacred music.

Friday, January 16, 2026, 7:00 – 8:30 PM at the Fellowship.

Tickets $25 in advance, $30 at the door. No one will be turned away for lack of funds.

Buy tickets online using this link: https://jayalakshmimusic.com/event/6393721/748516126/jaya-lakshmi-kirtan-and-sacred-music-concert.

Childcare is available!

Free childcare can usually be arranged for any Fellowship event by using this link 1-2 weeks prior to the event.

Jaclyn Moyer Reading, 1/18

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Corvallis resident Jaclyn Moyer will read excerpts from her book On Gold Hill, a 2025 Oregon Book Award winner. Moyer’s story combines food and culture. In raising wheat and vegetables on a 10-acre California farm, she discovers her Punjabi ancestry and the origins of organic agriculture.

Sunday, January 18, 2026, 12 noon – 1 PM in the Sanctuary.

Childcare is available!

Free childcare can usually be arranged for any Fellowship event by using this link 1-2 weeks prior to the event.

Can you see yourself in the Choir?

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There’s nothing to be afraid of and all it takes is that first step. Like a New Years resolution, change might be scary – but honest! We’re friendly.

The choir is a welcoming group of singers who enjoy learning music and sharing it with the Fellowship. There is no audition.

We meet every Wednesday at 7:00 PM in the Sanctuary. Contact Director Steven Evans-Renteria for more information at this link.

First day of Postcard Writing to Voters, 1/4

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Get your pens ready! Join the Democracy Action Team in writing to prospective 2026 election year voters. Sunday, Jan 4th is the first day of our first writing project in 2026.

WHAT: News Boosting Postcards to Georgia to educate voters about the impact of the “Big Beautiful Bill” on rural hospitals. You can see the postcards at Informed Voters of America initiative website at https://www.informedvotersus.org/.

HOW: We have 200 postcards to write and mail by Feb 5, 2026. We will distribute them in packets of 10 (with addresses, stamps, and instructions) at the Democracy Action Team table in the Social Hall after Sunday worship (which starts at 10 AM) – starting on Jan 4. Look for us there! Take the supplies and follow the instructions!

Or – you can get the supplies from Claire Montgomery.

Or – you can sign up with Postcards to Swing States at https://secure.ngpvan.com/NPCPSG0VaUqaLw7w6AbNDg2 and have them mailed to you directly. You can choose where to write (Georgia, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, North Carolina) but the minimum order is 100 postcards.

Contact Claire Montgomery (UUFC Democracy Action Team) for more information.

Do hand-written letters and postcards increase voter turnout? YES. Randomized Controlled Trials demonstrate statistically significant increases in voter turnout of 1-3%. That may not seem huge – but swing state elections are close and that could be more than enough to tip the scale. Check out Vote Forward experiments at https://votefwd.org/impact (click on “See Our Tests”) and Progressive Voter Turnout Project experiments at https://turnoutpac.medium.com/a-gateway-to-activism-postcards-win-close-elections-5bf7f45da15a.

Happy writing!

Outreach Offerings for January

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Our January Justice Outreach Offering will support We Care. We Care is a local coalition of faith communities, businesses, foundations and other non-profit organizations which provides emergency assistance for Benton County residents. Each week, We Care helps people pay for rent, utilities, and other expenses to prevent evictions and homelessness or the shut-off of water or electricity. The Fellowship has long been a supporting partner.

To learn more about their work, visit the We Care website.

How to donate to the monthly Outreach Offering

Each month, the Fellowship gathers donations for a certain charitable cause. These are our Outreach Offerings. You can contribute to this month’s offering in a few ways:

  1. Give to the Sunday collection basket
  2. Donate online
  3. Donate to the refreshments during the social hour

The Kitchen team donates an assortment of sweet and savory refreshments, including gluten-free and vegan choices, for our enjoyment at the social hour following Sunday worship. These items are purchased and prepared by the team to encourage donations to the Outreach Offering. Collection baskets are always found at the ends of the refreshments table. The next time you’re eyeing something tasty on the table, consider putting a donation in the basket first to show how much you appreciate having that treat ready and waiting for you!

Post-Poetry Popsicles on Sunday 12/28!

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Post-Poetry Popsicles is a playful, positively purposeful, pleasantly pointless (but practically prudent), pastor-approved party, providing perfectly preserved, previously purchased popsicles for parishioners, participants, poets, performers, parents, and pals.

Please proceed post-program to the pleasantly populated social hall where plentiful popsicle provisions will be proudly presented as a peaceful, playful, palate-cooling payoff for pondering profound poems, processing powerful prayers, and participating patiently in a purposeful, poetic production.

This people-pleasing, pseudo-picnic promotes personal presence and proper popsicle purging while preventing permafrosted freezer paralysis. Please participate!

In plain language, the RE Council has a popsicle surplus, and we need the freezer space for other things, so we’ll be giving away free popsicles after the poetry service on Sunday. Everything must go, so please come enjoy a cold treat on a cold day, and if you’re a popsicle fan who would like to take home any leftovers, please let Skyla know!

Visibility Brigade Bannering Event, 1/2

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Visibility Brigade Bannering for Women’s Basketball Pre-game Traffic

Friday, January 2, 2026
5 – 6pm PST

Gill Coliseum at OSU
660 SW 26th St
Corvallis, OR 97331

Join us to deploy our first banner of the New Year before the January 2 Beaver home game from 5-6 pm. Our banner will read “RESIST ICE” and since there will be a lot of foot traffic, we also will provide a QR code or small flyer for those who want more information. We will be test driving our new banner with lights. Each person will hold a letter shaped from Xmas string lights to spell out the message. Help spread the message of ICE resistance!

The Benton County Visibility Brigade was sourced from the UUFC Democracy Action Team and is now also a part of Benton County Indivisible. The Brigade broadcasts messages in support of democracy by carrying out high visibility actions, including bannering from I-5 overpasses and in high traffic locations in Corvallis. We are totally committed to non-violence in word and deed and very safety conscious. Best of all, we have lots of fun! If you experience despair over the current state of democracy, check us out as a great antidote. For more information, email visibilitybrigadebc@gmail.com.