[SRCAction] Social Responsibility Projects and Events Review

Ansel Ploog ansel.ploog at gmail.com
Tue Dec 20 10:05:16 CST 2016 

Solstice Greetings,

Weather and the Holidays stole our last Social Responsibility Committee 
meeting for 2016 so I thought now would be a good time to review some of 
our projects.I have hopefully put everything in chronological order and 
many apologies if I’ve left anything out.Just a reminder that you can 
instantly send information to all members and friends of the SRC by 
emailing: SRCaction at unitarianchurchofmontpelier.org.

Current Business:

Heifer Project International – Hedi has been organizing this in the 
vestry the last couple of Sundays.She will be sending checks out 
December 26^th , so I believe there is still time to donate to this 
organization. Contact Hedi Ballantyne (223-0455, 
hedi.ballantyne at gmail.com <mailto:hedi.ballantyne at gmail.com>) For more 
information about the work that Heifer does: https://www.heifer.org/**

*Food Pantry Donations – I’m copying this from the e-news just to remind 
folks to bring in donations to the food pantry on Sunday.Please make 
sure these items are not out-of-date, as the Food Pantry cannot use them.*

**

*Women’s March on Washington:*

*There are many UUs headed to Washington for the rally on January 21^st 
.If you know that you are going to Washington and could help coordinate, 
with Joan, a UCM presence there, please let her know.*

*I will be attending the Montpelier rally on the same day and will serve 
as the point person for a UCM presence there.I’ll share more information 
about this after the New Year.*

**

*UUA Common Read – _The Third Reconstruction_ by Rev. William J. Barber II*

*This book is especially pertinent to the SRC because it challenges us 
to draw together our many social justice causes under one unified 
theme.Barber also tracks the national backlash in our country after 
major gains in civil rights (Reconstructions).I think we can see that 
we’re in a backlash currently, or ‘whitelash’ as some have termed it, 
and Barber’s cautions and recommendations are timely.If you have 
borrowed a copy of this book and have finished it, please bring it in to 
the lending library for others to read.*

*Joan will be leading a discussion of this book on January 23^rd from 
7-8:30pm in the Children’s Chapel as part of the ARE 4^th Monday series.*

*Sanctuary Congregation*

*Both Diane and Eva compiled great information about becoming a 
Sanctuary Congregation.I encourage everyone to read them through (I’ve 
attached their documents).I was happy to hear that at least one person 
at Migrant Justice responded positively to this idea.It remains crucial 
that we work with the undocumented in VT to provide the most effective 
support.*

*Many of you probably heard Vermont Edition on VPR last week about 
Sanctuary Cities in Vermont.There was some great information about 
logistics as well as rebuttals to some classic and racist arguments.I 
was disheartened by negativity of the (overwhelmingly white and male) 
callers and it is worth noting the amount of misinformation that is out 
there about undocumented folks in Vermont.Immigration attorney, Leslie 
Holman; Migrant Justice rep, Will Lambek;and *Mayor Joseph Curtatone of 
Somerville, MA were all excellent guests.**

*http://digital.vpr.net/post/sanctuary-cities-vermont*

**

*Revitalizing the SRC Lending Library and Bulletin Board*

*I’ll be honest: this is something I’m really excited about.I envision a 
lending library of books that challenge and engage our congregation and 
an accessible bulletin board that shares events, introduces new social 
responsibility topics, and points to places to learn more and get involved.*

*After the New Year, I will be coordinating a pre-Sunday service library 
clean-out to go through our books and other materials.I’ll send an email 
out to let you know when this is happening and anyone with an interest 
is welcome to join.If you have ideas of what sorts of things you would 
like to see on our new and improved bulletin board, email them to me or 
draw me a picture and slip it to me in church!*

**

*Other Updates*

*Because we did not have a meeting last Sunday, we did not get updates 
on the work of some groups such as VT Interfaith Action, 350vt, Rainbow 
Umbrella and the Central VT Refugee Action Network.Let’s make sure to 
check in with these groups and others to support their ongoing work.*

**

*Reading Recommendation*

*For your longest nights’ readings, I recommend Ta-Nehisi Coates’s 
/Atlantic/ essay, “My President was Black.”Coates is a fantastic writer 
and this essay is a stirring and exceptional view of the Obama 
Presidency place in American history. *

*https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/01/my-president-was-black/508793/*

**

Finally.The Solstice service last Sunday offered a new perspective for 
me of heading into the shortest days and longest nights of the 
year.Rather than focusing on light “to drive the dark away," as Susan 
Cooper says, Eliza and the other organizers of the service focused on 
embracing the darkness.I was reminded that it is in darkness that we 
push our roots down, without which we could not reach up to the 
light.Darkness is a place to quiet our sight and to develop our other 
senses of the world.Surely there is a metaphor in here for the darkness 
of our world – that if we use our senses of continuity, the desire to 
make everything okay, we will not see any hope in this darkness and we 
might despair.Are there other senses we can call upon to know our world 
in darkness?

Peace to you all, safe travels on icy roads and sidewalks, and may the 
darkness awaken within you powers you did not know you had,

Ansel


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://unitarianchurchofmontpelier.org/pipermail/srcaction_unitarianchurchofmontpelier.org/attachments/20161220/32906bf3/attachment.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: UCM Becoming a Sanctuary Congregation.docx
Type: application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document
Size: 15220 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://unitarianchurchofmontpelier.org/pipermail/srcaction_unitarianchurchofmontpelier.org/attachments/20161220/32906bf3/attachment.docx>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: From Eva.docx
Type: application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document
Size: 11159 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://unitarianchurchofmontpelier.org/pipermail/srcaction_unitarianchurchofmontpelier.org/attachments/20161220/32906bf3/attachment-0001.docx>

More information about the SRCAction mailing list