The February recipient of our shared offering will be the activist group, Black Lives Matter of Sacramento.

 

For the December 2016 Community Contribution, half of our offering went to the

American River Natural History Association/Effie Yeaw Nature Center, for a total of $2,173.

 

And our Christmas Eve Collection benefited the River City Food Bank in the amount of $1,202.

What Am I Missing?

He is cheering us on and praying for us all from a distance.  Now in his ninth year of ministry at UUSS, Roger is taking the last four months of a six-month sabbatical. 

As noted in the column above, he will be traveling, reading, resting and reflecting spiritually.  As he said in his January visit back to UUSS, he is very grateful for the excellent ministry and high energy of Rev. Lucy and Intern Scott, the rest of our great staff, and for the many volunteers who put extra time into church life and put extra warmth into welcoming our many new families and other visitors. If you have questions about the sabbatical or how things work at UUSS during this time, click here to see Sabbatical Q & A.

We have started the second half of our church year and there will be many, many things going on at UUSS.

 

First let me say thank you to all of the members and friends that turned out for the Martin Luther King Jr. Day and the Women's March on the Capitol.  It was amazing to see a great presence from our church.  It is very inspiring to see so many members of UUSS come out to support these most important movements.

 

In just a short time we will be starting our annual Stewardship Campaign.  The committee has already been meeting and has requested budget information from the Program Council and the other committees that count on your donations to fund their programs and activities.  This year we will again be asking for an increase in your pledge, as circumstances allow, so that we can fully fund our budget and be able to compensate our staff and move to our fair share commitment, pay our mortgage payment out of pledges and fund raising, and keep our programs and activities growing and thriving.  Please be thinking about what you feel you can contribute to the campaign that is so vital to each of us and our community.

 

On April 29 we will be having our Spring Auction.  This is the second most important fundraiser for us.  A committee has been formed, and you will be hearing from them in the coming weeks.  (See "Auction Without Borders" in this issue.)  Please consider not only making service donations but consider helping with the event itself.  I am sure the committee would appreciate all of the help they can get.

 

May 6 will be the Pacific Central District Assembly that will be held at the Mt. Diablo UU church in Walnut Creek.  A very important part of the assembly will be a forum to meet the candidates for UUA President.  The three candidates are the Reverend Susan Frederick-Gray, the Reverend Alison Miller and the Reverend Jeanne Pupke.  As a church it is important to get to know who these candidates are and learn about their experience and what they will bring to this important job.  You can read more about each candidate on the UUA website.  The delegates we send to General Assembly will vote based on what they hear from our congregation.

 

The really big event during our church year is General Assembly (GA).  This year it will be held in New Orleans on June 21-25!  How exciting it will be to go to New Orleans and experience General Assembly.  A committee has been formed, headed by Rich Howard, and this committee will be bringing information about GA, what can you expect to see and do, the vote for the new president of the UUA, and other activities and experiences.  In the next few weeks this committee will be setting up workshops and a Sunday table with information that will have someone available to answer your questions about GA.  Hopefully we can get a good turnout from UUSS.

 

Linda Clear 

Last month we celebrated Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King's vision of a "beloved community." For us UUs it was a month of planning, meeting, preaching, teaching, praying, marching, rallying, . . . and singing! Dr. King gave the keynote speech at the famous "March on Washington" in 1963, and it's important to remember that Joan Baez, Harry Belafonte, Marian Anderson, Bob Dylan, and Peter, Paul, and Mary sang. Dr. King especially wanted Gospel legend Mahalia Jackson to sing; she added a deep and powerful spiritual dimension, vividly described in the children's book Martin & Mahalia.

 

We are blessed to have two UU songbooks that contain songs of freedom and justice (and our choir music library has some, too!), so as we march ahead into 2017 we have the inspiration of "We Shall Overcome" as we seek to "Turn the World Around."  

 

Keith Atwater, Music Director

We had a great time last year, and raised a lot of money for programming here at UUSS. Don't miss out - put the 2017

Auction Without Borders on your calendar now!

Have recent political events annoyed, frustrated, or irritated you?  Use that emotional energy and redirect that frustration to make a difference here in Sacramento. The Refugee Support Team began meeting last spring to explore opportunities to aid refugees in our local community. That exploration led to a Bike Drive, collecting many Welcome Kits, and partnership with International Rescue Committee (IRC).  We now have 80 volunteers on our e-mail list. Some volunteer weekly at IRC, others help out at IRC's monthly workshops.  Many donate and help with events here at UUSS. In November we began a Mommy & Me class on our UUSS campus to teach English to moms and their young children.  

 

We are now planning activities for 2017.  Our first event is a luncheon February 5 in the Fahs Room.  Volunteers will share their experiences so we can learn how to better guide them, and serve local refugees. We will host a benefit concert and art show here at UUSS on March 11.  We're just beginning to plan a spring bike drive to get bikes and safety classes to refugees and their children.  This was a popular and very successful event last year.  Members have also directly aided refugee families who have visited UUSS.

 

If you want to know more about how to help refugees settle here in our community contact one of us (Kim Marta, Joseph or Sarah Turner, Meg Burnett, Sandra Navarro or Caleb Davis) after Sunday service or via the UUSS website at http://www.uuss.org/refugeesupport/. Join us for lunch on February 5 to meet other volunteers.  Or, e-mail us at   refugeesupport@uuss.org with questions or to be added to our e-mail list. With your assistance, we can do great work in 2017!

Beginning Friday, February 3, Ray Reynolds of the Adult Enrichment committee will be hosting videos and discussions on the Great World Religions series.  The videos are presented by five college professors who conduct an authoritative, informative and up-to-date survey of the history and nature of the world's five major religions: Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism and Buddhism.  The DVDs are from the Great Courses and have been generously donated by Ray Reynolds.  After the video a discussion will include what issues are most meaningful to each religion's adherents.

 

The purpose is to enhance our knowledge of these major faiths and to view them in their totality as a unified, integrated human activity.  The videos and discussions will be presented on Friday afternoons in the library from 3 to 4 p.m. and again in the evening from 7 to 8 p.m. They will begin on February 3 and last for 12 weeks. The first religion to be covered will be Christianity and it will be followed by Islam in the fall. You do not need to register for the session, just drop in.

We are opening our UUSS vegetable and flower garden (UUrth Song Garden) in March for gardeners who want to amend and/or fertilize soil in their plots and plant later. Also we are adding new compost to the plots. This year, we have changed our rental rates to a tiered system. Two of our plots are raised to be accessible to ease bending or for sitting while gardening, and the Garden is ADA compliant. 

 

If you are ready to commit to a garden plot or just want more information, come to our Garden Meeting, at Noon on Sunday, February 19.  We want to hear your suggestions! We are offering garden plots to the congregation first; if vacancies remain we will ask our neighboring sites if they would like to join us. Payment gets you a plot/s on a first-come basis.

 

Let's play in dirt!

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