The UUFC fundraising auction on June 6 is one of the largest Fellowship events of the year! It takes many hands to make it happen, and we need yours. Volunteers will receive dinner for free as thanks for their service! View the available roles in the signup form by clicking the button below.
Note that this form is for expressing interest in roles. The auction organizers will assign roles based on how many people express interest for which jobs. You can choose which roles you like, or you can say you’re open for anything! Each person will be assigned a single role, unless they check the box indicating they’re open to filling multiple sequential roles through the event.
The online portion of the Fellowship’s annual fundraising auction is opening for bidding on Sunday, May 17 at 1 PM! Peruse the lots donated by our community, and bid on the ones you desire straight from your computer. The online auction focuses on goods and services, while the live auction (happening June 6!) will focus on experiences.
Three upcoming opportunities to help care for our UU Grounds:
Saturday, May 9 9 AM – 12 PM
Friday, May 15 2 – 5 PM
Saturday, May 30 9 AM – 12 PM
We have mulch and wood chips to keep our grounds looking beautiful, but they need our help to go from unsightly piles to well-cared-for beds. There are also opportunities for weed pulling, and that’s a great way to get fresh air and sunshine and see immediate results! Please come share the work – and the satisfaction of a job well done together!
For people who have completed three required Inquirers Series for Membership, you are invited to come sign the Membership Book. Joyce Standing will be in the Library on Sunday from 11:30 AM – 12 noon to welcome you as you sign and give you ceremonial gifts from the Membership Team. (Note that a public recognition will occur on May 17 during service, for those who sign the book by May 13.) For more information, contact membership@uucorvallis.org.
Taste the Nation is a dinner event (eat -in or take-out) offered by immigrant families sponsored by Corvallis for Refugees. The event occurs on the second Friday of each month, 5:30 – 7:30 PM, at Imagine Coffee, 5460 Philomath Blvd, Corvallis. The dinner features dishes from the home countries of the families present. Dinners are $15, which is paid directly to, and supports, the family providing the meal. Cash or Venmo only.
Along with Spring comes Mothers Day, and I want you to know that I honor the many ways different people experience Mother’s Day. Please be gentle with yourself as you experience this holiday if it is a difficult one for you. I wish for you to find nourishment from this poem (below) by Rev. Leah Ongiri (on the staff at the UU congregation in Portland), as she names the complexity of motherhood. This poem will also be read aloud during the service on Sunday. Remember you can join by Zoom if you can’t make it to the building. With care, Rev. Alex
On Mother’s Day, let us mark how beautiful and complex it can be to mother and be mothered: To those who have mothered, we thank you. To those who rejoice in the work, the role, the presence of mothering and mothers, we celebrate with you. To those who are in the thick of parenting children of any age, we appreciate you. To those who experience loss through infertility, abortion, miscarriage, adoption or running away, we mourn with you. To those who have lost their mothers, we grieve with you. To those who have endured abuse at the hands of their mothers, we acknowledge you. To those who experience pain at the marking of this day, we witness you. To those who are single moms, grandmoms, stepmoms, foster moms, adoptive moms, mentor moms and spiritual moms, we need you. And to those who are pregnant with new life, both expected and surprising, we anticipate with you. May we reflect with gratitude on the wide spectrum of mothering that happens in our lives and in our communities.
“May, queen of blossoms, and fulfilling flowers! What pretty music shall we charm the hours?” – Lord Edward Thurlow
Greetings, Families!
Please grab your calendars and read carefully all that is below. This month’s newsletter is ripe with date changes, summer event previews, and more!
UPCOMING EVENTS:
5/3 Family Breakfast @ 8:45 (register HERE and bring a dish if you are able)
5/14 Parent Connection Dinner @ 6:30 (register HERE one time, to get reminders) BRING YOUR OWN DISHES!
5/17 Annual Meeting (childcare is provided!) @ noon
5/24 Parent Q&A with Skyla on Playground deck @ 11:45
PLAN AHEAD
6/7 River of Life RE 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.
If you love Family Breakfast — and we know you do — take special note: May’s breakfast is happening one week early so we don’t overlap with Mother’s Day.
If the mother in your household dreams of nothing more than sleeping in on her special day but simply cannot bear the thought of missing monthly breakfast, please consider this our humble gift to you.
May Family Breakfast will be Sunday, May 4. We hope to see you there!
Summer Sundays are made for lingering. A post-service hike, a splash in the river, a snack shared with friends while the kids run ahead.
While Parent Connection Dinner and Family Breakfast take their annual break from June through September, we’ll be leaning into a few casual, low-prep ways to stay connected this summer:
June 28 – Fitton Green Hike & Snack July 26 – Marys River Natural Area Splash & Chat August 29 – Family BBQ & RE Orientation (this one is a Saturday!)
Each month’s RE newsletter will include registration details and gathering information. If we need to cancel due to extreme heat or low registration, I’ll contact registered families by text.
I’m especially excited for the August BBQ, because it will serve as our joyful on-ramp into the new church year. We are planning to lean hard into family fun, stronger connections, and fuller attendance in the year ahead, and this gathering will be our first step.
We’ll eat together, play lawn games, and welcome both new and returning families. Children who register early will receive their RE t-shirts as we unveil this year’s theme. Then, as the kids head off with their guides and advisors to play games and create their group covenants, parents and I will spend some time talking about our shared hopes for Religious Exploration, and about how we can partner with you to make Fellowship Sundays a place your child is genuinely excited to be.
Please get these dates on your calendar now, and let me know if any of them land squarely on family vacation plans. If a large portion of families are excluded and there’s a better option available, I am more than willing to shuffle things around. The earlier we compare calendars, the easier it is to make summer work for everyone.
Speaking of communicating your needs with me, I’m delighted to invite you to our annual Parents’ Chat with the DRE.
This is a casual chance to share your questions, your calendar conflicts, your hopes, your frustrations, and your wildest ideas for how we can get you and your children genuinely engaged in UU faith formation. If there’s something you’ve been wanting me to know, this is a great space for it.
Join me on May 24 at 11:45 a.m. on the RE deck. I’ll have pitchers of lemonade, the kids can play on the playground, and we can chat in the sunshine.
What you share in this conversation really does shape the plans we make over the summer as we prepare for fall, so I hope you’ll come help me dream a little.
Thank you to everyone who came out for the JETPIG Easter Egg Hunt last month! The feedback was fabulous. Our big kids were wonderfully caring with the littles, and our volunteers kept their cool under some very real crowd pressure at the slime and candy tables.
I especially want to share one story that came out of our volunteer debrief.
When I asked one volunteer how the event had gone, they told me they had spent part of the night before studying the value assigned to their station so they would be ready to talk about it from every angle and ready to help children think a little more deeply instead of simply grabbing the prize and sprinting off to the next table.
They were positively beaming as they said, “I learned so much just preparing for this, and then it really paid off. I had the best conversations with some of the kids.”
As they shared a few of those exchanges with me, I realized I could hardly track the details because I was too busy feeling so stinking proud to serve alongside adults who take the faith formation of our children this seriously.
Y’all, we are beyond lucky to have the volunteer team we do. Your children are in excellent hands with these remarkable leaders who prepare on their own time so they can engage more meaningfully, and who genuinely delight in watching children light up with excitement about what they are learning. Gah! What could be better than that?
Thank you, as always, for entrusting your children to the care of the Religious Exploration team. It is such a joy and an honor to watch them grow, to see their personalities branch out in all directions, becoming more fully themselves year by year. What a gift it is to be humans in community together.
I’m wishing you blossoming love, deeper connection, and a few good pockets of springtime ease this month. And as always, if you need to chat, I am only an email or phone call away.
Do you want to share your music with others in the Fellowship? Sign up to perform at the Music Sharing. Sign ups will be available in June. Watch the weekly announcements for details on how to sign up.
Do you like to sing or play music, but the thought of performing causes you a feeling of terror or dread? This is understandable. But you should know that we’ve had many people make their musical debut at these Music Sharing Nights. People who have never sung outside of their car or the shower took the leap and stood in front of a supportive group of people from the community cheering them on to make their first public performance. This could be you!
But if you don’t want to perform, you don’t have to. There will be no pressure whatsoever – just come and enjoy the music and cheer on all the fantastic musicians in our community!
The May Monthly Outreach Offering is to Casa Latinos Unidos. This organization is committed to strengthening the Latinx communities in Linn and Benton Counties through programs that support people in meeting basic needs, build resilience and capacity through education and leadership development, and celebrate cultures. They are all first and second generation immigrants with a deep sense of identification with the people who have immigrated to the area from Latin American countries, bringing their traditions and dreams to build a new life in a new country.
