Wendy Weiss Southern,
Director of Religious Education dre@westsideuuc.org
These gorgeous early summer days have been a wonderful start to summer vacation here in Knoxville. Our RE Summer Program has started, and next week is WUUC’s Wizarding World Camp of Fantasy and Fun (June 13-17) which we are preparing for and getting more and more excited about as it nears. For our Youth Group, our trip to General Assembly is only a few weeks away. These are exciting and busy times at Westside!
General Assembly is a hefty financial commitment, though, and we’ve been working on fundraising since the beginning of the year. At this point we have reached 70% of our funding goal. We have just launched a 15 day Faithify campaign to help us raise funds to cover the remaining costs. Follow the link below to our campaign page to learn more about our project and to donate.
We are thrilled to be taking 5 members of the Westside’s Youth Group to General Assembly this year. None of these youth have been to GA before, so this is an extra special trip for the youth of our small church. Westside values this important opportunity for our youth to see UUism in action on such a large scale, to participate in events and sessions with other UUs from around the country (and the world), and to be involved in a way that inspires our youth’s leadership and social justice dispositions.
In addition to our youth, we have two chaperones attending. Our middle schoolers will choose events and sessions that they want to participate in at GA, including the WARE lecture, the Banner Parade, and various worship events, most notably the Sunday Morning Worship. Issues that are of great interest and concern to our youth include what it means to be a white supporter of Black Lives Matter, communicating tolerance with the majority religion in our culture, and building a multigenerational community in our congregation.
We have a unique situation in that we are bringing our middle school youth as part of our Youth Group. Due to the small size of our congregation, we combine high school and middle school in our Youth Group. Half of our group is going to GA. Although we are small, we can boast percentages that show incredible involvement and commitment by those who participate and volunteer in our RE Program.
For every fundraising event, we’ve had almost total participation (with understandable time conflicts of other important activities by our active youth), including on the part of parents. Every effort was made on our entire group’s part to contribute in some way, even in an absence. This level of dedication and perseverance is admiral and a testament to the character of the members of WUUC and its Youth Group.
While we have set our Faithify campaign at $750 to cover costs of registrations and lodging, please continue to fund us beyond our Faithify goal. Share this link widely with friends and relatives near and far. Every contribution is significant to us. Thank you for your generosity!