Volunteer Message

• We encourage CUUC members and friends to learn about and become personally involved in social justice outreach activities.
• We serve as a repository for information about social justice programs outside of CUUC.
• We research areas within the broad theme of healing injustice that might be of interest to our congregation.
• We share our research with members and friends and listen to their responses.
• We coordinate the scheduling of charitable appeals to the congregation.
• We provide Helpful Hints for Starting a CUUC Social Action Project, a compilation of suggested elements to consider when starting a new project.
• We nurture project participants through mentoring, training, and spiritual reflection.

Third Annual Columbine Acts Day - April 24th

This is becoming our tradition: CUUC members and friends, kids and grandparents spending a few hours one Saturday working to make our community a better place. We call it Columbine Acts Day and it is a lot of worthwhile fun. We’re going to do it again this April 24. We will spend the day putting our UU values into practice as a community of caring people.
Columbine Acts Day is part of a Mountain Desert District effort to have every UU congregation devote a day in April to social service. In the metro area Jefferson Unitarian, 1st Universalist, Prairie UU, and Columbine, are doing similar projects on one day. Imagine UUs across the whole district all engaged in a variety of service to our neighbors and to our world…imagine the difference we will make throughout metro Denver!

We are gathering several one-day projects that you can choose from; some are more strenuous, some are indoors, and kids can participate in every one. Our work on April 24 will be a celebration of our principles that value our place in the web of life and the worth and dignity of every person.

Please join us especially if your schedule does not allow you to commit to ongoing projects. Plan to spend a few hours on April 24 in a community of generous UUs walking our talk. The Just ACT crew is working on the details now so if you want to help, or have questions or suggestions email them to justact@columbineuuchurch.org  or speak with Eric Gustafson, Brian Pendleton, Jim Hopkins, Maureen Flanigan, or Sarah Manning over coffee.

Join us! Join in Columbine Acts Day!

Just ACT Planning Meetings

We meet on the first Wednesday of every month at 6:30 to 8:00pm at church.

What are you up to? Can you fit some Just ACTion into your life? We have opportunities for you to make a difference in someone’s life and to influence how our kids live. Spend a few hours a month and discover what you get back spiritually. Or, if you’re the curious or committed to action type, come to our meeting and discover what we’re really up to as we plan for 2010 and our future.

Social justice programs are the reflection of Unitarian Universalism principles put into practice. As a coordinating team, Just ACT offers support and assistance to those who wish to learn about, participate in, and create service, charitable, or advocacy projects. Team members are individually involved with diverse projects and meet regularly to share information, strategies and experiences. Members and friends with ideas for new projects are particularly welcomed. We‘d like to hear your ideas and passions, so please feel free to contact sarahmanning@sprynet.com or just show up on Wednesday!

Green Team 2009 is for you!

The Green Team Project (GTP) is an ongoing grassroots environmental non-profit project of the Tides Center whose focus is to empower and motivate people to make a difference environmentally through their own practices. The CUUC Green Team is a group of individuals who participate in the Green Team Project. Each new green team meets for 6 sessions and learns ways to reduce our impact on the world in five resource areas: water, energy, solid waste, chemicals, and transportation. After completing the program we informally keep in touch with one another, sharing information as we continue to learn, and supporting each other’s ideas to help CUUC as a church lessen its impact on the environment. Each year we hope to have a new group of church members complete the program.

CUUC gives a great deal of support to three specific programs within IFCS: outfitting children returning to school; buying turkeys for the food baskets given to over 500 families at Thanksgiving; and sponsoring families at Christmas with two gifts for every child and coupons for groceries. Contributions of clothing, household items, and non-perishable foods are always welcome in the wicker basket in the CUUC foyer.

If you would like to volunteer or make a donation, please contact Frances Blizard at 303/795-8221 or justact@columbineuuchurch.org  for more information.

Project Angel Heart

Dine Out to Help Support Project Angel Heart!

Project Angel Heart addresses the critical need for nutrition by providing home-delivered meals specifically designed to meet the heightened nutritional requirements of people battling life-threatening illnesses. CUUC Members support Project Angel Heart (PAH) by delivering meals every Saturday afternoon in the SW Denver area.

PAH's big annual fundraiser is Dining Out, Save a Life! on Thursday, April 30.  Now you too can help PAH by dining out with CUUC friends at a participating restaurant which has agreed to donate 25% of each check to PAH. You may either sign up to join a CUUC group going to Romano's in Littleton that night or dine at any of the participating restaurants in your area. For the list and a link to the reservation service, go to http://www.diningoutforlife.com/denver/participating .

Sign up at church or email Jim Hopkins at jahpk@att.net to reserve your spot at Romano's in Littleton (Time to be determined; 6 - 7 pm likely). Or make your own reservations on the website. Let Jim know you are participating via email. 

If you are interested in becoming a volunteer, please contact Project Angel Heart (303-830-0202) to sign up for a required volunteer orientation at the PAH Headquarters near Colorado Blvd and I-70. Orientations last about 90 minutes and are required for all new volunteers. Volunteers who will be the drivers should bring their driver’s license and proof of insurance to the orientation. Please note that you must RSVP for the orientation.

Upcoming orientations are:

First Saturday of the month at 10:00 am
Second Tuesday of the month at 5:30 pm
Fourth Wednesdays of the month, 5:30 pm

Once you have been through the orientation, contact Jim Hopkins to find out about signing for one of our CUUC Saturday delivery days. The time required on the Saturday that you volunteer will be approximately 2 hours, from 1-3pm.

For more information about this volunteer opportunity at CUUC or for any questions, please contact Jim Hopkins by email at jahpk@att.net or at 303-589-5971.

Services for Hire is CUUC’s fund raising program in support of the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee (UUSC). The Unitarian Universalist Service Committee advances human rights and social justice around the world by partnering with those who confront unjust power structures and mobilizing to challenge oppressive policies. UUSC is affiliated with the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations (UUA).

Services for Hire matches individuals’ needs with skilled CUUCers who can fill those needs. CUUC members and friends offer their services to each other for smaller fees than would normally be charged commercially. Checks for services performed are made payable to UUSC and become donations instead of payment to the volunteers. Current services include tutoring, house cleaning, home repairs, pruning, meal preparation, pet care, window washing, transportation, and carpentry. If you have a need, please contact Les Jones or Sarah Manning at and we will do our best to connect you with someone who can help.

If you’d like to contribute, please consider the talents and skills you’ve developed that you can donate as you help out a fellow CUUCer and the UUSC. A complete list of volunteers and services can be found at: http://www.columbineuuchurch.org/uusc.html#Volunteer_Service_Roster.

Please contact Sarah Manning at justact@columbineuuchurch.org  to be added to our list of wonderful volunteers!

The Kids Need Us!

Tutoring Program at Fort Logan Elementary Organizing
for the 2009-2010 School Year

CUUC‘s Tutoring Program is recruiting volunteers to participate in our weekly tutoring program, working one-on-one with elementary school students to develop reading, arithmetic and other critical learning skills.
This year we are expanding our tutoring outreach to Dutch Creek Elementary School in addition to our long time support of the students at Fort Logan Elementary School. Dutch Creek Elementary is just 4 blocks
south of CUUC on S. Webster Street.

Our students tend to be in the lower academic achievement levels. Many of them are from immigrant and single parent families. This is our opportunity to share a gift of time with kids who don‘t get much attention and don‘t have many positive roll models in their lives. We do make a difference in their lives, and they in ours. As one of our Tutors says, "I received more joy and rewards from CUUC‘s Tutoring Program than I ever could have imagined."

Teaching experience is not required. We will provide training and coaching. We need volunteers who can participate as regular Tutors during the school day. Your weekly commitment would be about 1½ hours each week. If you can‘t commit weekly, we are also looking for volunteers who can be Substitute Tutors.

Please join us! Contact Brian Pendleton if you are interested in participating, or if you have questions about the program, at 303-972-8544, or at bpendleton@msn.com

Work Camp in Guatemala:
The Petén Project - January 2009

The exquisitely decorated Mayan ceramic plate, dating from the classic period of 300-900 A.D. was broken in half. Nothing a little duct tape on the back wouldn’t fix! Dory Pinkham, Janet Hamilton, Dave Fagan, Kathie Cochran and Ann Wederspahn improvised one more fix that would have horrified any museum curator, and continued cleaning and arranging the long neglected exhibit cabinets in the municipal library. Farmers finding artifacts in their fields had donated dozens of vases, plates, bowls, whistles and stone grinding tools to the exhibit.

Meanwhile, Bob Pinkham, Roy Pool and Gary Wederspahn were improvising a gutter out of sheet metal scraps and pieces of wire to keep the neighbor’s corrugated metal roof from continuing to pour rainwater onto the library’s concrete block walls. They had just applied a coat of sealer to the walls and didn’t want their efforts destroyed in the next big rain.

The busy morning at the library in San Andrés, Petén, Guatemala had begun around 8am. By noon the CUUC work camp volunteers headed home to their families for the large meal of the day. Each couple or single volunteer lived with a Spanish-speaking family of Mayan ancestry in a simple home within walking distance of the library. Pigs, chickens — sometimes ducks or turkeys — wandered through the dirt or cement patios surrounded by various rooms or simple structures. A trip to the toilet at night often involved a dark, muddy path. Meals were hearty, simple, and always included freshly baked tortillas — often right off a fire rather than stove.
Afternoons at the library were wilder than anticipated as word spread that the visiting gringos had brought lots of fun activities for the kids, who were still out of school on Christmas break at the end of January. Forty-five kids on Monday grew to nearly 80 by the end of the week. Tie dying tee shirts was the highlight, but making stick puppets, tissue paper flowers, beaded necklaces, and paper-framed Polaroid photos of themselves were all great fun.

Watching the sun set on beautiful Lake Petén Itza about 6 pm each evening, the volunteers all headed back home to supper and their mosquito-netted beds, knowing that morning would be announced only too soon by the roosters and the neighborhood corn-grinding mill.

Some highlights:

Watching Bob’s pop-bottle rockets actually blast off, to everyone’s delight.

Eating chocolate-dipped frozen bananas, sold for one quetzal at the local tienda.

Seeing Gary’s face when he learned the empanada was filled with road kill armadillo.

Watching Dave diagnose and prescribe for an older gentleman who was relieved his pain was likely sciatica and not the diabetes he feared.

Hearing a local school teacher ask, on getting to see through a telescope for the first time, whether the stars were bigger than cars.

Attending a party at Dory’s home, where the father climbed a coconut palm and cut down fresh cocos for all of us to drink.

Visiting around a campfire in the rain, on a point overlooking the lake the last night…knowing we’d given a little and learned a lot during our Guatemala adventure.

CUUC Women's Circle participates in an outreach project through an organization called Women for Women International (WfWI) which focuses on the urgent need for aid in many countries throughout the world for women who are victims of war. Very often rape and victimization of women is used as a military tactic. The women affected by this violation are generally considered outcasts by their neighbors and families, often deserted by their spouses and left with their children in poverty and despair.
WfWI has set up a program of support, education and re-socialization of women in several of these war torn countries. (You can visit their website at www.womenforwomen.org ) Their programs are changing the lives of women and children each day. WfWI provides rights awareness and leadership education along with the vocational and technical skills training needed to provide a better standard of living for each woman and her family. The sponsorship is nominal for the sponsors but invaluable for those who benefit from it.

Our Women's Circle has sponsored women from the Democratic Republic of Congo. Hopefully our financial support and personal letters to our sisters in the DRC will show they are indeed valued and help on their way to independence and security.

What a good way to enlarge our circle. For more information, please contact Ruthanne Cauley at 303.979.7753 or justact@columbineuuchurch.org .