The Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Corvallis
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Side with Love is the Organizing Strategy Team of the Unitarian Universalist Association.
30 Days of Love is their annual celebration that runs approximately from Martin Luther King, Jr. Day in January through Valentine’s Day in February with weekly offerings of spiritual nourishment, political grounding, and shared practices of faith and justice, including child and family activities.
Find out more here: https://sidewithlove.org/30daysoflove.
The UUFC Building Enhancement Team has begun discussions with Varitone Architects to begin planning the changes to the social hall and community kitchen. We are in information-gathering mode right now and will have a table in the social hall after Sunday worship service for the next 2-3 weeks. Please stop by, fill out a survey, give us your opinions and take a look at some sample plans for the space. We need your input in order to create a plan that works for everyone.
If you have questions please contact any member of the team that includes Nick Houtman, Russ Anderson, Carolyn Madsen, John Bailey, Michael Hughes, Wolfgang Dengler, Carl English-Young and Brian Egan
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.
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!
The City of Corvallis is soliciting community input about potential improvements and investments to downtown Corvallis. You can read about their initiative and fill out their survey here: https://www.corvallisoregon.gov/advisorygroups/page/creating-downtown-vitality-strategy.
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!
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.
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 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!
We are collecting feedback on the 2025-2026 pledge drive! Fill out the survey to share your thoughts by clicking the button below.
Your feedback will used to make improvements in how we communicate about pledging, record key pledging information, and share the importance of pledging with the congregation. Survey responses are anonymous so please share what is on your mind and how we can make this process better in the coming years. Contact Rachel McGrath (who is helping to support the stewardship team) with any questions regarding the survey.
Welcoming the Unwelcome Study Group
Monday evenings from 7:15 to 8:30 September 23rd – December 2nd
Facilitated by Joyce Federiuk
Please register HERE.
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.
What’s in store for Adults in Religious Exploration this year? I’m so glad you asked!
Some upcoming Adult RE opportunities include:
Mosaic Antiracism Series (September and October)
Music Theology (January)
Adult Coming of Age (March and April)
Crossing Thresholds Group (September through May)
ONGOING OFFERINGS:
Parent Peer Support Group (3rd Thursday of each month @ 7:15 in room 3, with free childcare provided in room 6B)
Neurodivergence and Mental Health Peer Support Group (Third Sunday of each month @ 11:45 in Room 9)
Family Breakfast (2nd Sundays, October through May)
All past RE event listings can be viewed here!
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.
