We Chose Social Justice Issues!

January 27th Social Concerns Committee meeting notes:
Present:  Sally Hicks, Abby Fowler, Teretha Fowler, Ruth Stanton, Nancy Mandlove, Alice Sutton and William Worley

ShareThePlate Winners!  Ballots were available Jan. 17th to Jan. 27th, at two services and announced in The Happenings as available on the Social Concerns Table in the Fellowship Hall.  Fifty-seven members voted for the recipients.  Top choices were Healthy Smiles of Spartanburg (20), Safe Homes and Rape Crisis Coalition (15), St. Luke’s Clinic (15), and Animal Allies (14).  All others received ten or fewer votes.   So these four will be our recipients for Feb.-May.  We will Share The Plate on the second Sunday of  each month.    I will try to get a rep. from Healthy Smiles to  speak briefly Feb. 14th (DONE).

Sally said she first thought Social Concerns was about planning the social life of the church, and so was not interested.  Someone else had thought this, too.  We discussed this as one good reason to change name of committee, to help new members know what it is.   Also changing mission statement-- draft mission statement includes justice and uses stronger, activist language

Choosing Three Global Issues: 
Discussed UU service Committee and handed out info.   One of their campaigns is on Gulf Coast Advocacy.   We discussed why go global when there is so much need at home, why go international when there is so much need within this country.   Good points made on both perspectives.   Nancy, Ruth and Alice talked about the emotional impact of seeing, living in, and helping in a developing country.  The lasting difference in perspective energizes participants often for the rest of their lives.  Sally brought up the expense of traveling abroad.   We also talked about networking and planning, etc., to have a successful trip for church members.   In this discussion, we changed our focus from choosing three global issues to three national/international issues.   We had a consensus that we were not ready to present a plan involving international travel.  The topics we will present to the congregation are 1) Gulf Coast Recovery (a UU Service Committee campaign), 2) Appalachian Poverty, Ecological destruction (such as mountaintop mining), and Opportunities for Recovery, and 3) Haiti (a UU Service Committee focus).    In these areas, we will look at the whole picture, including rights for women, economic justice, and environmental recovery. 

Important Concern:  Several members have expressed concern that changes in Social Concerns will take away from our activities in Park Hills School/Neighborhood.   We discussed the need to address this.  We plan to continue partnering with Park Hills School and being active with families in the neighborhood, and with regular collections for Park Hills students, etc.  We also have a small but regular commitment to St. Luke’s Clinic and to the SPIHN (help for homeless) program, and to Total Ministries Food Barrel —we plan to continue these.  But we need ways for congregational members with other interests to get involved in different activities.  In particular, we need some offerings that appeal to a variety of youth—when my daughter was in high school and college, she didn’t want to babysit or be around little kids, but she jumped at the chance to get involved in an animal rescue NPO.  

Choosing Three Local Issues:  We discussed these, chose education and literacy for adults as one issue, and agreed to choose the additional two issues at the Feb. meeting.  
Present to the Congregation:  need time for three 10:00 sessions in March, April, and May.   
Next SPIHN dinner:  Thursday, Feb. 25th.