Social Action Committee (SAC) Chair Elwin Nunn
Please remember that Casa de Peregrinos always needs food and money.
Here are the highlights of the quarterly Social Action congregational meeting on Sunday, Arp 18:
• Jane Asche did a tribute to Virginia Butler for all her work with the UU United Nations Office.
•Three of our youth reported on their trip to New York and visit to the UN. They described their experiences and showed pictures of their trip.
• The next Fine Dining at the J. Paul Taylor Center (JPTC) will be on Saturday, May 8. The food will be Thai.
• The next relationship and family health education at the JPTC will be in June and July.
• There was a report on the class in poetry and prose two of our members recently taught at the JPTC. It is going well but they’re having to work with a different dorm each time which makes continuity difficult.
• A report on Casa de Pergrinos called our attention to the fact that they seriously short on funds although the church people are very generous and the NMSU civil engineering students brought in truck loads of canned foods recently.
• The mentoring program at Booker T. Washington Elementary School is going well. Several people have been very generous so expenses for the Apr 27 NMSU outing for the fifth graders is now covered. However, we could use $60 scholarships for a few of the kids to go to Peace Camp.
• We now have a new UUSC representative who is studying up on the organization.
• The Kiva micro-lending project is not yet up to speed but hopes to soon be selling shares at $10 each. Our reporter hopes that people will leave their money in the project to be rolled over to new loans when the first ones are repaid. Kiva is operated solely on the Internet and has the lowest overhead of microlending organizations.
• We discussed possible new projects. One of our members provided us with postal boxes and custom slips for mailing books and personal items to the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. We also talked about Pennies for Peace, the Greg Mortenson foundation for helping school children in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Remember:
- Helping to change attitudes and thus reduce recidivism of juvenile detainees is outreach ministry.
- Collecting and distributing food to the needy people in our community is outreach ministry.
- Supporting Haitian relief efforts through the UU Service Committee is outreach ministry.
- Providing school supplies for elementary school students in poor neighborhoods is outreach ministry.
- Introducing 5th graders to the possibilities of a college education is outreach ministry.
- Improving access to our church facilities for people with disabilities is outreach ministry.
- Supporting one of our kids to learn about the UN is outreach ministry.
- Providing funds for micro-lending to lessen third-world poverty is outreach ministry.
- And picking up litter along our adopted section of the highway in Mesilla is outreach ministry.
