UUCville’s Social Action Collection
Giving is an attitude. It’s a heart issue. -unknown
Our UUCville congregation has developed a unique way to contribute to Charlottesville area social justice causes through its monthly Social Action Collections. Satyendra Huja led the Social Action Collection for many years; he thought it was a perfect year if 12 organizations applied to be a SAC recipient. The collections were originally organized so that one Sunday a month a SAC collection was taken for that month’s social justice organization.
Along the way, Jen Larimer, a subsequent chair, revamped the collection system by clarifying the application and voting processes, and publicizing the appeals for social justice groups to apply internally via church members’ sponsorship. According to SAC’s present co-chair Elizabeth Breeden, “We wanted a church member to sponsor an organization’s application, believing that he/she would have a good relationship with the organizations and could vouch for the organization’s programs as well as their fiscal responsibility.” To this day, the SAC Application requires the applicants to answer only seven simple questions and be sponsored by a UUCville member.
The premise behind the Social Action Collection is that the church, united as a group around donations and actions, can have profound impacts.
Three programs that are dear to the UUCville congregation—Impact, Food Pantry, and Hospital Meals—are automatically assigned a month to be a recipient of the SAC collection. Each year congregation members gather to listen to applicants and to vote for the recipients of the remaining nine months. All UUCville members are eligible to vote and anyone is welcome to attend and learn more about the worthwhile organizations that have applied. For many of these organizations, the SAC is a vital source of funding.
This year according to Karen Prairie, co-chair of SAC, “It was so moving to hear about the incredible work the applicants are doing in our community and beyond. With 15 amazing organizations applying for only 9 spaces, it was a very difficult decision for everyone.” One congregation member said her criteria for choosing was who did good work and had the smallest budget, because they are the ones who would benefit the most.
While a representative from the selected organization comes to one Sunday service to make their pitch, the SAC is collected all month-long during each Sunday service and online via our website.
The SAC ministry has grown over the decades. In 1976 total Social Action Collections were $1026. In 1995 Social Action Collections jumped to $5100 and in 1999 they had almost doubled to $9356. In 2023 SAC experienced record-setting giving by our congregation members—monthly totals have averaged between $2,100 – $6,000!
The nine community organizations that will be supported by this year’s (July through June) Social Action • Collections are:
• Birth Sisters of Charlottesville
• Blue Ridge Abortion Fund
• Brothers United to Cease the Killing (The BUCK Squad)
• Charlottesville Public Housing Association of Residents (PHAR)
• Cultivate Charlottesville Living Energy Farm (sponsored by Serenity Solidarity)
• New Beginnings Christian Community Food Ministry
• Partner for Mental Health
• Sin Barreras Without Barriers, Inc.
“I joined the Social Action Council, while Jean Shepard was chair. At that time, people on the Council proposed the candidates and voted for them. We were rewriting the By-Laws at about the same time, and Jean was in charge of that too. When I followed Jean as chair of the Council, probably around the time I retired in May, 1998, we began to have organizations submit formal applications, and invite representatives to attend a Council meeting to talk about their work. Kip Newland co-chaired with me for two or three years, and we talked as a group about criteria for selecting the recipients for collections, to get some sense of consensus about what kinds of organizations we wanted to support.”
~ Greta Morine-Dershimer
Read other stories brought to you by the Stewardship Steering Committee
Warmer, Safer, Drier: UUCville Appalachia Service Project Trip