UUCSJS Midweek Message

• Minister's Midweek Meditation
• Announcements
• Notes From the Board
• Events This Week
• This Sunday
• Call to Action
• Explore Our Monthly Theme
• Connect to Our Faith

Rev. DC is on study leave this week. If you are in need of assistance, please reach out to a member of our caring team.

Rev. DC is available for pastoral care appointment Wednesday through Friday 10am to 3pm. Email minister@uucsjs.org to schedule an appointment.

Contact a member of the Caring Team

Team members can provide you with support during/after an illness, a death in the family, or other loss or hardship. They can find you resources, run errands, or provide meals in time of need.

Reach out to:

• Tracey Catino at (609) 674-8721 email: Traceysnaps@msn.com
• Denise O'Meara at (610) 316-7495 email: denome53@gmail.com
• Helen Utts at (609) 338-3391 email: HelenUtts@aol.com
• MaryLou DeMaria-Berhang at (201) 247-5635 email: MLberhang@gmail.com
• Tony Zitelli at (201) 463-2800 email: happy85a@aol.com

To have your announcement placed in the Midweek Message, please send an email to admin@uucsjs.org by Noon on Wednesday.

Planning a special event? The Communications Team can help. Visit https://uucsjs.breezechms.com/form/42685e for more information.

Margaret Circle will meet at the UU Center on Thursday, March 3, at 1:00. The program, following our joys and concerns, will be a game, led by Arlene Yacka, called “Left, Center, Right”. It was played at an auction event a few years ago and greatly enjoyed by many.

We know you’ve been missing UU's favorite part of Sunday Services, so we have a plan to get back in the swing of things. Starting in March, you are welcome to bring your favorite beverage, in your favorite travel mug, and join us under the tent on the North lawn and socialize outside after services. Since this is an outdoor activity, masks are encouraged but not required. Hope you will participate.

We’re pleased to announce that a revised UUCSJS Directory of Members & Friends (January 2022) is now available on the Members Only section of our website. Also, we want you to know that brief biographies of the four new members who joined December 19, 2021, will be emailed soon to all members.

In other news, Membership will now assist in the lobby with Covid-19 health pledges beginning this Sunday, February 20. As you enter, you will still need to complete your pledge either by signing a form provided or by using the QR code to do so.

Meantime we will be working to re-start the practice of having greeters in place each Sunday—to be on hand with a friendly greeting as we enter, and more! We hope you will say “yes” to this role when requested, as we all enjoy returning to in-person services!

will be held at the UUCSJS Center February 27, 2022 immediately following the Sunday service for the purposes of considering the highway signage proposals described in the announcement that has gone out by email and transacting such other business as may come before the congregation. Absentee ballots and proxy voting will be available. Contact Board Secretary Betsy Erbaugh for more information.

Click on the graphic below or visit the calendar at uucsjs.org for more information on events and meetings.

CLICK HERE to reserve the Zoom Room or to add your event to the calendar.

- Music Director Gina Roche

Join us for a service filled with music, poetry, and song. Music Director Gina Roche coordinates this service with an all-star cast of contributors!

PLEASE NOTE: This service will be in person at UUCSJS and streamed live on our Facebook page. A recording will be available later in the day on our YouTube Channel.

Several Caring Committee members have been volunteering with the Eastern Service Workers Association this winter.

Low-income workers need immediate attention to food, clothing, and advocacy by way of ESWA’s benefits program. This winter has been particularly tough. Many evictions going on as Covid rent moratorium expires. The goal is for the longer term solutions to their poverty.

An exciting milestone has been reached to help in this mission. A dilapidated building behind their office has been slowly renovated by all-volunteer individuals with carpentry, painting, electrical and plumbing skills. The final task for this to become much-needed ESWA Members Service Center is to lay the floor. A kind contractor’s very reasonable quote for his labor is able to be covered through donations. What remains is the $2,700 bill for materials. They are able to cover $1200 of that. We offered to try to raise the remaining $1500. I have personally “hit on” family and friends to the tune of $775.

$725 remains.

We hoped that you good people might consider donating. I personally would be glad to take anyone over to ESWA in Pleasantville so you can be impressed first hand, and possibly consider volunteering. More volunteers are urgently needed! They didn’t have enough to get out the Tamales.

Thanks beforehand for your generosity!

Denise OMeara, on behalf of Caring Committee and ESWA

Contact Denise OMeara

What is the purpose of Eastern Service Workers?

Support those working in service industry:

• Dishwashers
• Cooks
• Bartenders
• Waiters
• Housekeepers

What kind of help do they offer members?

• Advocacy
• Clinics
• Emergency food
• Clothing
• Help stop eviction

Ways to help:

• Advocacy-help them when they are being evicted, mistreated by a landlord, being overbilled for something, etc.
• Help send out mailings
• Help deliver food
• Help with toy/clothing distribution
• Help with office work
• Donate money or help raise money
• Drive and deliver tamales for fundraiser
• Donate your time as a doctor or dentist for their monthly clinics
• Help raise money for a new floor for their clothing closet

When can you help?

Any day of the week

T/Th 9 AM until noon training is held for people to learn about the organization and become an advocate

Call to reserve a spot:

(609) 646-9814

Address:

53 E Washington Ave

Pleasantville, NJ 08232

Eastern Service Workers has an urgent need for volunteers. Unitarian Universalists are called to serve those in need. Reach out to ESWA today or contact a member of the UUCSJS Caring Committee for more information.

We have an opportunity to support Afghan refugees who are relocating in South Jersey. I have had a couple conversations with Cheryl Dunican-Hein from the Cherry Hill UU. She and her husband are longtime social justice advocates. Specifically, Catholic Charities has the government contract to facilitate resettlement of Afghan refugees in our area. There is a sum of money allocated for each refugee. Catholic Charities is looking to partner with us. The Atlantic City contact is Jose Sanchez.

There are three types of support needed:

1. Transportation to and from medical appointments.
2. Instructors for English as a Second Language. You do not need to be certified.
3. The donation of furniture plus drivers and trucks to pick up the donations and deliver them to the individuals in need.

Contact Janet Longo 609-226-6596 if you are able to contribute to any of the above.

Volunteer to be a worship associate! Contact Sheila Stoner or Rev. DC today!

-From Soul Matters

When tragedy or trauma sweeps over our lives, our worlds become small. It becomes hard to extend our hearts and heads beyond the narrow feelings of fear, wounds and worry. As a way of widening that circle to include hope and connection, many have turned to the advice and words of Fred Rogers: “Look for the helpers.”

To honor this, you’re invited to take a week and look for the helpers. Think of it as a day-long meditation or noticing practice. Just raise your awareness for 7 days and pay attention to those who are helping. All forms of “helping” count! You might notice a firefighter or maybe it’s just someone who engages a homeless person with respect. A co-worker offering a kind word counts just as much as the activist working to bring about change.

To put this into practice, we suggest setting aside at least 10 minutes at the end of each day to write down the helper or helpers you noticed. Better yet, take some time to daily share the story of the helpers you noticed with your partner or a friend. Most of us will do this exercise by ourselves, but a powerful alternative is to find someone to join you in this “hunt.” Hold each other accountable to doing it 5-7 days in a row and then make a coffee or lunch date to go over your list of helpers.

Here you will find ways to learn about and connect with our faith and opportunities to connect with other UU's from outside our congregation.

Click on the images for more information.

Registration is now open for discussion sessions on the common read of The Social Life of DNA, sponsored by the UUFANJ Reparations Task Force. Sessions will be conducted over Zoom on Feb 23, March 9, March 23, April 6, April 27, and May 11 from 7:00-8:30pm.

The common read curriculum is prepared with leadership by Dionne Ford, author, and Dr. Mahdi Ibn-Ziyad, Reparations Task Force Co-Chair.

About The Social Life of DNA

In The Social Life of DNA: Race, Reparations, and Reconciliation After the Genome, Alondra Nelson details how DNA testing is being used to grapple with the unfinished business of slavery: “to foster reconciliation, to establish ties with African ancestral homelands, to rethink and sometimes alter citizenship, and to make legal claims for slavery reparations.” In her deep dive into the intersection of genetic ancestry and racial politics, Nelson gives an overview of US reparations projects over the past century including one in our backyard – the African Burial Ground in New York City. Now a national monument and the oldest and largest known excavated burial ground in North America for both free and enslaved Africans, the African Burial Ground was a major factor in the development of consumer DNA testing, a multi-billion dollar industry.

Click on the graphic above to learn more about:

• What's new on Faithify.org
• COVID-19 updates from the UUA
• A peek into this year's General Assembly
• Registering for A Second Slice of Pi: An Online Conference for Smaller Congregations
• Plans for the UU Institute expansion
• CERSI is back!
• How the Article II Study Commission needs your help
  
• The Better Together Blog
• See the full calendar of CER events

Sunday Services 10 am in person and livestreamed on Facebook.

Email: admin@uucsjs.org
Website: www.uucsjs.org
Location: 75 S Pomona Rd, Egg Harbor City, NJ, USA
Phone: (609) 965-9400
Facebook: facebook.com/uucsjs
Twitter: @UUCSJS