The Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Corvallis
Come buy beautiful spring bulbs to brighten your days! All proceeds to benefit the Perla family as they await their asylum hearing in 2027. Suggested price $10-$20. The sale is happening in the parking lot and on the back deck after the service on March 16th. Contact Nancy Kyle of the Immigration and Refugee Support Team with questions.
Queerly Beloved Meetup
Sunday, March 9th, 4 PM – 6 PM in the UUFC Social Hall
This month, we will have a combination hour. The first hour we will play some icebreaker get-to-know you games as we do puzzles. You are invited to bring your knitting if you have a project! The second hour we will listen to some queer comedians and discuss our responses to the themes they bring up! If you want to submit a video clip for the queer comedy watch party, contact the Sexuality and Gender Diversity Team!
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Queerly Beloved meets every Second Sunday! (note the temporary change!) Join LGBTQ+ folx and allies for social gatherings centered on queer issues and themes. We understand the importance of queer community, and our goal is to provide a safe space where people can find that sense of belonging right here in Corvallis.
If you need childcare for smaller children, please contact the Grandfolks Squad.
Help the Sexuality and Gender Diversity Team throw a June Pride party at the UUFC!
If you have ideas for activities at our annual Queer Pride Party, let us know!
We are looking for volunteers now who want to take on one of these areas:
– Coordinate food and drinks
– Coordinate decorations
– Set up and tear down the day of the party
– Music
– Lead a game or activity!
Interested? Contact the Sexuality and Gender Diversity Team.
UUFC justice teams, and all others who are interested, will gather on Saturday, April 5, to hear from community partners and share ideas in an event we are calling a Justice Renewal. We all face growing threats from several directions: an authoritarian federal government, homelessness, and climate change. In support of our Unitarian Universalist values, we will learn what our partners are focusing on now, priorities, and share our justice teams’ activities so we can develop strategies for increasing our impact. A light breakfast will be served beginning at 8:30 AM (GF and vegan options available.) We’ll finish up in time for all who plan to go to the “Hands Off” rally at noon.
If you would like to participate beginning with breakfast at 8:30 AM please email cat@uucorvallis.org by March 29.
Do you trip over your words when someone asks you about your religion? Do you find it hard to articulate what UUs believe when you’re feeling on the spot? Well, struggle no more, my friend! There’s a workshop for that!
Join Skyla for a 3-part workshop to help you clarify your thoughts on what UUism means to you. By the end of our time together, you’ll have a short, meaningful elevator speech in your pocket for the next time someone says, “You’re a Unitarian Universalist? What does that even mean?”
April 8, 15, and 22nd from 6-7 PM in the social hall.
Register with this form: https://uufc.breezechms.com/form/3c115c6.
Thank you for preregistering by April 1st.
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!
To the question which is so present for us now – “What can we do?” – there will not be an easy answer. There may not be an answer at all. There will be, there is, the here and now, the every day. What we do in each moment, at each juncture and opportunity, is what any answer will be made of. There are answers, moment by moment, in how we treat people and animals and plants, in how we use energy and live on the earth, in how we rest and sing and love and dance. There are answers in the changes we may make – in what we think is important and what is not, in what we think we need or must have, in what we choose to let go of. “Make your life a message”, said Eknath Easwaren ( a disciple of Gandhi.) The answers will be in how we live our lives, now. As always, that is the call of the religious life.
Black History Month is not over yet. Have you learned something new? Has your perspective shifted? If you are still looking for a way to learn more, I have a few suggestions. Look for these writers on Substack: Dante Stewart (An American Thread), Robert P. Jones (White Too Long), and Jacqui Lewis (Fierce Love – especially “Dear Nice Whyte People.) If you have learned something this month I’d be glad to hear about it.
February 27 at 6:30 Corvallis Library
The Secure Housing and Food For All team invites you to Corvallis Microshelters: Film Showing & Panel Discussion The evening will begin with “No Place to Grow Old”, a film produced by Michael Larson of humansforhousing.org, followed by a panel discussion featuring Rev. Jen Butler and Shawn Collins, Unity Shelter; Rev. David Marshall, Episcopal Church of the Good Samaritan; and Pastor Heather Seman, Sara Power, and Corinne Butzin, First United Methodist Church. Their focus will be on how local churches are currently providing services to microshelter residents, and what other Corvallis faith congregations can do to support our community’s most vulnerable residents. Thursday, February 27 (6:30 – 8:00 pm) at Corvallis-Benton County Public Library, 645 NW Monroe Ave., Corvallis
Social Hall, Kitchen: 5:30 pm Monthly Vegan Potluck – Everyone Welcome! Bring a dish to share with others who are learning to eat in a healthy, climate friendly way. Include Plants: grains, beans, fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, herbs & spices. Exclude: flesh, fluids, and unborn young. Try it! You’ll like it!! Need more info? call Ann Marchant
Community Kirtan is an evening of chanting presented by members of our Friday Satsang. We are fortunate to have several members who can lead chants, and community participation by singing & and playing rhythm instruments creates a vibrant evening full of positive energy. We hope you’ll join us in the UUFC Sanctuary 7-8:30 PM on the 2nd and 4th Friday of the month for this joyous celebration of community. For more information, please contact Kitzie Stern.