The Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Corvallis
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The children and youth in RE will be making winter care kits for unhoused neighbors during the November 30th Children’s Chapel.
We need donations of gloves, hats, socks, and HotHands for our kits before November 30th. Please consider donating new or gently used physical items or cash to help us purchase these items for our kits. Donations can be placed in the marked box under the table outside of the RE office in Room 2.
Our goal is for every one of our 40 registered children and youth in RE to have a kit in their car ready to be handed to someone in need. Your generous donations will help us learn about and engage in community care.
Thank you in advance for supporting our RE programs!
As a Greeter, you are the friendly face of the fellowship and extend an invitation to all who would like to join us; therefore, being friendly and welcoming is most important.
You’re invited to learn more about being a Greeter on Sunday, October 26 at the TRICK or TREAT RESOURCE FAIR. Drop by the Greeters Table and sign up – we’re game if you are!
Contact Team Lead, Heather E, for more information.
Holiday Trees (small, live, native conifers) provide holiday cheer and make a modest financial contribution to the UUFC while supporting local tree planting. The Climate Action and Fundraising teams are again collaborating to offer these trees for sale and, after the holidays, to take them back for planting. Doug fir and Willamette Valley Ponderosa pine, both in 3 gal containers (slightly bigger than last year’s 2-gal), will be available. Trees will cost $25.
This year, Holiday Trees has expanded to include two other faith communities and a service club. As a result, the total number of trees is up, at 102 trees, but our UUFC allocation is down, at 36, limited by logistics and our planting partners.
With a limited number of trees, we are taking reservations and asking for payment in advance to confirm reservations. To reserve one or more trees and indicate preference for Doug fir v. Willamette Valley Ponderosa pine, please use theOrder Form. Your reservation will be confirmed once payment is received and recorded. Payment can made be via Breeze to “Unpledged Donation” with note “Holiday Trees,” by check to UUFC with memo “Holiday Trees,” or by cash in an envelope marked with your name and “Holiday Trees.” The Breeze option is recommended because checks and cash will not be recorded until the Monday following receipt, and your tree will not be reserved until payment is recorded. The form will be updated daily to show trees still available. Unreserved trees to be available on a first-come, first-served basis.
Holiday Trees will have the best chance to thrive once planted if (a) their time in a heated in-door environment is kept as low as possible and (b) they are watered, but not over watered.
Trees will be available for pick up at UUFC on Sun. 30 Nov. and Sun. 7 Dec., and can be returned to UUFC for planting on Sundays 11 Jan. and 18 Jan. Help will be available to load trees for pick up and unload for return.
If you are a musician, consider joining the fun of the Holiday Fair by volunteering to play seasonal music during the fair for an hour between 9 am and 3 pm on Saturday, December 6. One of the highlights of last year’s Holiday Fair was the live music in the lobby during this beloved annual event.
The Holiday Fair team is looking for volunteers to help prepare for and run the event. We need help with various tasks leading up to the event, including baking goodies to donate to the event, posting flyers, and collected donated children’s items. On the day of the event, we will need help with things like greeting, cashiering, and providing vendor relief. If you are interested in helping out with one or more of these roles, please use the links below to sign up.
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:
The Social Concerns team donate 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 end 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!
“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!
Our Outreach offerings in October support South Corvallis Food Bank, which is a shopping-style food pantry offering a 5-day supply of food to households every other week. Partnered with Linn-Benton Food Share & Oregon Food Bank, the Food Bank strives to increase food-security in our community through compassionate care.
Try, once again, to let everything you do be done in love.
I am inspired by these words Rev. Jill uses to close our Sunday service. What would it be like to live this way? Sometimes I speak or act out of love, and that feels like happiness. But not everything I do or say comes from love, and when an alternative motivation (like ego, obligation, guilt, anger, etc etc) takes over, the results are often not so good.
How can we move closer to this lovely ideal? Buddhist nun and teacher Pema Chodron has a masterful way of explaining Buddhist wisdom in an accessible and compelling way. After reading “When Things Fall Apart” I was intrigued by the idea that in our incessant quest to avoid suffering, we often make a mess of things and cause a lot of suffering for ourselves and others. When I attended a weekend retreat with Pema and learned to meditate, I learned that it is possible to train in loving kindness. Meditation allowed me to take these ideas to heart and start to apply them to actual situations. I then gained a new level of appreciation of the power of Buddhist wisdom.
I’m planning a study group to read and discuss “Welcoming the Unwelcome: Wholehearted Living in a Brokenhearted World”. Here’s a blurb from the cover: In her first new book of spiritual teachings in over seven years, Pema Chodron offers fresh wisdom, heartfelt reflections and the signature humor and insight that have made her a beloved guide in turbulent times. In an increasingly polarized world, Pema offers us tools to find common ground, even when we disagree, so we can build a stronger and broader sense of community. Sharing never-before-told personal stories from her remarkable life, simple and powerful everyday practices, and directly relatable advice, Pema leads the way in showing us how to become triumphant bodhisattvas- compassionate beings- in even the most difficult of circumstances.
Well, reading and understanding is one thing. But taking the advice to heart and trying it out in our everyday encounters is what I’m hoping to achieve in this Adult RE offering. We will read, we will discuss, we will do guided meditations, and we will try out these ideas in real life.
We very much appreciate you taking the time to pre-register so that we can arrive well-prepared to provide you with the best RE experience possible.
If you have a special interest and would like to facilitate an exploration opportunity for adults, email Skyla King-Christison at dre@uucorvallis.org. The RE Council loves when our members help co-create the gatherings they would like to see, and I’m happy to support you in launching your RE-related ideas.
