The Social Justice Steering Committee is pleased to announce the Seeds of Justice Grant Program, through which UUC will award $10,000 to a social justice nonprofit working or based in our community.

This first year, we want to kick off the program, engage the congregation, learn from the experience, and set a foundation that can grow. The Steering Committee decided to build on UUC’s long history of advancing justice for people whose voices, needs and rights are invisible or dismissed in society.  UUC was “ahead of the curve” in addressing the AIDS epidemic; we’ve offered witness and aid to refugees and immigrants; we house the chronically mentally ill.  The Seeds of Justice Grant Program is our first grantmaking endeavor, and the goals of the program are:

Program at 9:30 in the Chapel; one worship service at 11:15

On Sunday, May 23, we will hold an information forum on health care reform in lieu of our first worship service. From 9:30 to 10:15, we will engage with a panel of speakers on the new law, what it means, and how it will roll out. 

Church school will be held as usual at 9:30 and 11:15, and worship will be as usual at 11:15 (with New Member Ingathering!).

This event has been organized by the UUC Health Care Reform Task Force, in partnership with Temple Beth Am.  The panelists include:

UUC's congregation continues its generosity through our monthly Social Justice Sundays, when we lift up one aspect of our church's social justie work and generally dedicate the morning's plate collection to that cause. 

In February we raised $2,900 for our church's hunger ministries - a cause sponsored by the social action group of our church's high school students. Food and hunger was the theme of the regional social action conference organized and hosted by our youth.

In March, in honor of Rev. Jon Luopa's 10th Anniversary Celebration, we picked a cause near and dear to his heart: community organizing. We raised $2,500 for the Sound Alliance, a community organizing alliance of religious and labor organizations of which UUC is a founding member.

Nearly 30 UUC members participated in a rally and march in support of comprehensive health care reform. The May 30 event, organized by Washington Community Action Network, attracted several thousand people in support of affordable, high-quality health care for all.

UUC members at the May 30 health care rally A UU dog for health care reform!Marching together

What a victory for Sound Alliance, and what an example of grassroots muscle at work.  Thank you to those of you who took time to write letters and make phone calls!

This bill authorizes the use of federal stimulus money for pilot programs aimed at reducing carbon emissions through in-depth energy efficiency retrofits for low to middle income homes, non-profits, and businesses. One such pilot program is Sustainable Works, a program of the Spokane and Sound Alliances.

UUC member April Osborne, who has worked tirelessly for this initiative, attended the signing ceremony. (See her in white just behind/to the left of the Governor.)

This fall, our congregation began a new practice of dedicating our plate collection on the second Sunday of each month to a social justice caused with which we are partnered or involved. We kicked off in September, when we raised over $5,000 towards our Habitat for Humanity project. In October, our dedicated plate collection generated $4,000 for our emergency feeding programs - critical at a time when more people in our community are facing hunger.

In November we took a slightly different  approach, educating our congregation on the UU legislative advocacy network, Washington UU Voices for Justice, and encouraging people to join this important organization and get involved in selecting priorities for the 2009 legislative session.

In December, we will use our second Sunday to promote the Fair Trade goods sales of our Economic Justice Committee, which raises funds for microlending in some of the world's poorest communities.

Summer certainly seemed to take its time arriving this year! But now that it has arrived, here are some summer film and reading recommendations from various members of UUC's social justice groups. Enjoy!

“You’re a big crowd!” exclaimed Governor Christine Gregoire as she took the podium at the Sound Alliance’s Founding Assembly on June 1. We were a big crowd, and the 110 members of UUC’s delegation were right in the forefront!

Hundreds of people from labor unions, churches, synagogues, and grassroots citizen groups came together to adopt our Agenda for the Common Good. Powerful personal testimonies put a human face on the issues, and we publicly negotiated concrete next steps with the Speaker of the House and the Senate Majority Leader on health care, education reform and energy conservation.

Our own social justice coordinator Jennifer Bright added to UUC’s visible leadership role as one of the co-chairs of the proceedings, as well as Ruth Little, who cast our vote to formally found the Alliance.