Weekly E-News, March 25, 2021

Weekly E-News

March 25, 2021

Join us this Sunday!

Please join us on Zoom this Sunday, March 28th at 10:30 AM for our service titled Courage and Commitment. We welcome lay minister, Mary Cline Golbitz and Helen Leddy, guest speaker. We will honor the holidays of Passover and Palm Sunday. Both holidays are examples of courage and commitment. Join us as we explore the lessons from the celebrations of these holidays.

Join Zoom Meeting Sunday at 10:30am

https://zoom.us/j/98733916229

No password needed

Or follow the link on our webpage for audio only: uucfm.org

Thank you to Sunday's Participants:

Mary Cline Golbitz, Lay Minister

Suellen Kipp, Director of Music

Karen Brown, Worship Associate

Helen Leddy, Guest Speaker

Peter Golbitz, Musician

Lesley Peterson, Musician and Tech Team Member

Mark Brandon, Tech Team Member

Walter Peterson, Tech Team Member

Jill Carville, Tech Team Coordinator

Judy Burget, UU Dialogues Host

Karen Brown, UU Dialogues Host

Community Sharing in March- South Fort Myers Food Pantry

The pantry continues to evolve to provide food for those in need in the safest possible environment for patrons and volunteers. As the pandemic continues and food insecurity increases, they are exploring different ways to expand our reach and help feed even more neighbors.

The Pantry’s current service area includes certain zip codes in South Fort Myers. However, for those in the congregation in need of food, they waive the residence requirement so they can access the Pantry regardless of where they reside in the local area. They would just ask you to provide these folks with a note on your letterhead confirming they are members of the church. They can present that note on their first visit to the Pantry. Another way they are considering expanding services is through outreach to provide food for seniors who are homebound and/or reluctant to visit the Pantry because they are concerned about possible exposure to COVID. They plan to develop a program that would allow volunteers from our church to pick up food at the Pantry for those senior members that we have identified. Food pickup would be available during normal service hours or could be arranged at a different time by appointment. If you have an interest in this program, please let them know and they will provide you with information needed to get started. Call us at 239-628-3191.

Thank you for supporting the Food Pantry as this month's Community Sharing Partner!

Vespers This Evening

Join Albie and Mary via Zoom bi-weekly Thursdays from 6:30PM-7:00PM. The next Vespers Service will be this evening, March 25th.

Join Zoom Meeting

https://zoom.us/j/91800250314?pwd=MmRRenNOUjNUdjcvU1Y3VTIxNFBTQT09

Meeting ID: 918 0025 0314

Passcode: 743236

UUCFM will be holding the Annual Meeting on Sunday, March 28th on Zoom after the service at 12:30 PM. (not May 28th as mentioned in the packet. That was an error.) The link is https://zoom.us/j/91560876633

This is a different link from the Sunday service link so you will have to exit after the service and use this new link to log into the Annual Meeting at 12:30pm.Thank you!

Volunteers of the Month

The Board of Trustees has named Nancy and David Hutchins and the Stewardship Committee as Volunteers of the Month for their outstanding work promoting the Pledge Generosity Campaign. Their efforts resulted in an extremely successful outpouring of enhanced pledges from our wonderful membership. Way to go Nancy, David, Judy Burget, Suzanne Ziemer, Don Maron, Len Cohen and Bill Petrarca! We appreciate your good works!

New Connection Circles!

Would you like to be more connected to others in UUCFM? This is your chance to get to know others and yourself better by joining a Connection Circle. The Circles are a ways of exploring spiritual topics in a deep way with others.

New circles are forming soon on Mondays and Thursdays at 1:30 pm. Please contact Leslie Gatto at [email protected] or Mary Cline Golbitz at mary@uucfm.org if you are interested. Let us know of your interest even if those times don't work for you. We are looking forward to connecting with you.

Charitable Contributions

If you would like a receipt for donations made to UUCFM in calendar year 2020, please email your name(s) to: [email protected]

Hardy Volunteers Needed

We need people to help place bricks along the walkway to the Sanctuary. We have the "know-how" and materials. We have a new sign for our Eco-Preserve which precipitated us having to move the 2011 50th Anniversary commemorative bricks. We will be adding more personal commemorative bricks next month for our 60th Anniversary PAVE-THE-WAY Fundraiser which will be launched March 28th. If you can help install these bricks please contact Project Manager Suzanne Ziemer, 239-463-9020, or [email protected].

The UUCFM Book Group

The UUCFM Book Club will meet March 22. We’ll be discussing Ch. 4 & 5 from The WEIRDest People in the World, by Joseph Henrich via Zoom. If you’re joining for the first time, please email Mary Studer. She will send you the link. [email protected]

UUCFM/Caloosahatchee Mindfulness

The Caloosahatchee Mindfulness and UUCFM Meditation Book Group is reading The Inner Work of Racial Justice: Healing Ourselves and Transforming Our Communities Through Mindfulness by Rhonda V. Magee.

The author "reveals that the work of racial justice begins with ourselves. The practice of embodied mindfulness--paying attention through our thoughts, feelings, and physical sensations in an open, nonjudgmental way--increases our emotional resilience, helps us to recognize our unconscious bias, and give us the space to become less reactive and to choose how we respond to injustice."

The group meets from 10 to 11:30 a.m. on Wednesdays. Contact Helen Leddy at [email protected] or Mary Robinson at [email protected] for more information.

COUNTDOWN...

We are celebrating our 60th Anniversary as a congregation this year. It is noteworthy that for the last ten of those years, we have been active in first creating (Rev. Allison Farnum) and then supporting Lee Interfaith for Empowerment (LIFE) both by our attendance at the Nehemiah Action in record numbers and through our generosity (in the top half of donations) Let's make this COVID-challenged year no different. Please commit to attending the Nehemiah Action on Monday April 26th at 7 pm by signing up for a link in with Kathy Ford, our LIFE representative. [email protected]

I am following the Affordable Housing Trust Fund effort and want to remind you of an open Training Session/Information session about how to create such a fund on Tuesday March 30th, from 6-8 pm. Contact Kathy for link.

We are also looking for a UUCFM volunteer to follow the Criminal Justice effort which is looking into local police reform involving mental health crisis response and the use of citations instead of arrests for young first time offenders. The next meeting is April 6th at 6:30 pm.

LIFE for justice; justice for life.

Kathy Ford

60th Anniversary, 1961-2021

PAVE-THE-WAY Fundraiser

We are celebrating our 60th year here by offering commemorative, personalized bricks to line the walkways leading into the sanctuary.

GOAL: 100 bricks @ $100 each to raise $10,000 for the General Budget to take the place of not having a Service Auction this year which raised that amount or more.

Order your personalized 4" x 8" brick of up to 3 lines,up to 13 characters/spaces per line.

Idea examples: IN MEMORY OF... REMEMBERING... YOUR NAME(S) DATES...A

SAYING...GRANDCHILDREN...

Examples of Bricks already ordered:

GRACE PROJECT, MAYA, COSMOVISION,

RESET, ESTABLISHED, JUNE 2020,

ALBIE & MARY, LAY MINISTERS, UUCFM 2021

LOVE ENTER EVERY, MIND & SOUL

TERI & MEL COOPER, PEACE & LOVE

JILL & ALISON CARVILLE, LOVE UUCFM

To get a brick order form, Contact Project Manager, Ways & Means, Suzanne

Ziemer at [email protected] or 239-463-9020.