2022-2023 Shared Offering Recipients
September: American Indian Center
October: Unitarian Universalist Prison Ministry of Illinois (UUPMI)
November: Unitarian Universalist Advocacy Network of Illinois (UUANI)
December: Reparations Fund
January: Midwest Access Coalition
February: Black Lives of Unitarian Universalism (BLUU)
March: Unitarian Universalist Service Committee (UUSC)
April: Land Institute
May: The Neurodiversity Foundation
June: Deborah’s Place
July: Building Peaceful Bridges
August: Interfaith Action of Evanston (IAE)
5th Sundays: Community Renewal Society (CRS)
The mission of the American Indian Center of Chicago (AIC) is to promote fellowship among Indian people of all Tribes living in metropolitan Chicago and to create bonds of understanding and communication between Indians and non-Indians in this city; to advance the general welfare of American Indians into the metropolitan community life; to foster the economic advancement of Indian people; to sustain cultural, artistic, and avocational pursuits; and to perpetuate Indian cultural values. AIC focuses on the arts by offering workshops such as drum making, moccasin making, and also by housing the first and only art gallery space dedicated to the promotion and education of Native artists in the city of Chicago. AIC runs a year round education program for youth that provides culturally based after school and summer programming for youth of all ages. AIC actively engages the Native American community through programming such as monthly senior lunches, monthly community potlucks and weekly drum practice.
The United States is a prison nation, 1 in 4 people incarcerated in the world reside in US prisons and jails. People who go to jail need to be treated like people both while they’re there and when they get out.
Our Mission: UUPMI will equip UU’s in IL to transform institutions and support people harmed by the prison industrial complex.
Our Unitarian Universalist principles call us to affirm the inherent worth and dignity of every person and to engage in a free and responsible search for truth and meaning. We want to engage those most in need of affirmation – the people locked up, often for very minor offenses, in Illinois prisons, who look to worship services for badly needed peace and solace. The UU Church of the Larger Fellowship serves 700 people in prison who deeply value our shared faith, and 260 people in Illinois prisons have pen pals through the GLBTQ group Black & Pink. The need is clear. Our UU presence and support in prisons can save sanity, spirit, and even lives.
UUANI strives first and foremost to link UUs with opportunities to affect legislation in Springfield and nationally and to offer training to be influential advocates. UUANI devises programs to build power among UU congregations in Illinois in order to achieve meaningful, concrete, far-reaching results which put UU values and principles into action. Part of building that power is honing skills to be effective “woke” partners with organizations representing a wide diversity of cultures, as we work together for systemic change toward a more just and equitable society.
One of the most important ways UUANI serves the UU congregations of Illinois is in supporting folks who yearn for social justice with training in advocacy and discernment – learning how to ally effectively with partner organizations to widen the reach of our voices. Directors Rev Scott Aaseng and Rev Karen Mooney and their teams will work with you and/or your social justice team to hone your skills to advocate powerfully for those social justice issues dear to you, to develop skills to organize support among your fellow UUs, and to discern how unconscious bias might interfere with your work with organizations led by people of other cultures, allowing you to bravely cross cultural barriers toward a more just society.
To get involved: http://www.uuani.org/contact-us
And sign up for Actions of the Week HERE: https://uuani.salsalabs.org/actionoftheweek/index.html
Coming soon…
MAC envisions a world in which all people have access to safe, free, legal abortions wherever they live. As a practical abortion fund, MAC helps people traveling to, from, and within the Midwest access a safe abortion by assisting with travel coordination and costs, lodging, food, medicine, and childcare.
BLUU
started as a small organizing collective that formed in 2015 in Cleveland during the Movement for Black Lives Convening. We are now a thriving spiritual community and justice-minded organization creating connection for Black people.
BLUU is committed to Unitarian Universalism that is liberatory and life-giving for Black people. We manifest this dream by creating spiritual community, spiritual resources, and political education opportunities for Black Unitarian Universalists and other Black folks who share our values.
BLUU harnesses love’s power to combat oppression and foster healing as a spiritual and political imperative. We know the power of love to be life changing, inclusive, relational, uncomfortable, unconditional and without end.
UUSC advances human rights and social justice around the world, partnering with those who confront unjust power structures and mobilizing to challenge oppressive policies. Our work is grounded in the belief that all people have inherent power and dignity.
Key actions include economic and legal support for Central American refugees, work with indigenous peoples facing climate disruption, and support for the Rohingya struggling with genocide in Burma.
Natural ecological systems are self-sustaining. For at least 10,000 years, humans have disrupted those systems and kept them in a continuous state of disruption in order to feed our populations and avoid famine. This, in a nutshell, is agriculture as we know it. Increasingly, the modern scale of those agricultural disruptions threatens to collapse the critical cultural and natural systems upon which we depend.
The Land Institute believes that it doesn’t have to be this way.
The Land Institute and our partners are not working to tweak the now predominant industrial, disruptive system of agriculture. We are working to displace it. We believe it is possible to provide staple foods without destroying or compromising the cultural and ecological systems upon which we depend, but only if we understand and work with the constraints and capacities of those natural systems.
When people, land, and community are as one, all three members prosper; when they relate not as members but as competing interests, all three are exploited. By consulting Nature as the source and measure of that membership, The Land Institute seeks to develop an agriculture that will save soil from being lost or poisoned, while promoting a community life at once prosperous and enduring.
Neurodiversity Foundation is a non-profit built and run by the neurodiverse, for the neurodiverse. We provide a platform for autistic advocates to speak to their experience and provide language for others to do the same. We are rewriting a highly stigmatized narrative by reframing misconceptions around autism and the inaccurately forecasted “outcomes” that harm a child’s self-efficacy. Our community projects are evaluated through a lens of empowerment. Utilizing a strengths-first approach, we empower individuals to feel proud of their identity rather than limited by it.
Deborah’s Place opens doors of opportunity for women who are homeless in Chicago. Supportive housing and services offer women their key to healing, achieving their goals and moving on from the experience of homelessness. We achieve our mission through a unique model that weaves together supportive housing with a menu of voluntary, evidence-based services. We deliver these services in an intentional environment that recognizes each woman’s strengths and abilities and fosters a sense of belonging and community. The Deborah’s Place model has evolved over 36 years, using external research and internal data to develop and deliver effective programs and services. We know that women who experience chronic homelessness can overcome complex barriers to housing, health and stability when they have what they need to be successful – access to affordable and appropriate housing, adequate healthcare, regular income and positive social supports. Deborah’s Place serves more than 500 women annually through outreach, housing and support services.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, volunteer opportunities at Deborah’s Place are limited. Currently, we are able to accept individual or small volunteer groups to do meal service in our Dolores’ Safe Haven program. Volunteers can cook a meal in our kitchen or bring in a catered meal and serve it to residents for lunch or dinner 7 days a week. Other volunteer opportunities may be available as the current health situation permits. For more information on volunteering at Deborah’s Place, please complete the contact form on our website at https://www.deborahsplace.org/contact-us/.
In 2014, two compassionate women from different parts of the world came together to inspire positive actions and peaceful resolutions. Ahlam Mahmood arrived in 2008 with her two young children to the United States from war-torn Iraq by way of Syria. Ahlam was blessed with many generous and compassionate people as she and her family resettled in Chicago. One of those people was Lori Lucchetti, a Glenview resident. Lori began hosting groups of interfaith women in her home. She would invite neighbors and friends. Ahlam would attend and bring other refugee women who were resettling in the Chicago area. Seeds of mutual respect, compassion, and love grew out of these luncheons and ultimately blossomed into Building Peaceful Bridges.
Building Peaceful Bridges is a nonprofit organization supporting people of all faiths whose mission is to foster multicultural relationships by assisting in the integration of refugees into American society and educating communities on the challenges facing refugee populations through their stories.
Interfaith Action of Evanston strives to build a just community. We work with diverse faith communities and individuals seeking to address the systemic issues of poverty, unemployment, homelessness and hunger. Through interfaith dialogue, we bring people together to build relationships and encourage understanding across faith boundaries. We partner with local legislators, community leaders and our neighbors to promote a healthy and equitable society.
We manage and staff soup kitchens, a warming center, an emergency overnight shelter, a hospitality center and free fresh produce distribution in partnership with the Greater Chicago Food Depository’s Producemobile.
We monitor and advocate for social justice. We share ideas across faiths and recommend actions to engage legislators and policymakers. Our public gatherings provide a venue for volunteers, supporters and others who care about ending hunger and homelessness.
We invite and promote opportunities for our faith community members to attend worship and/or engage in conversations with members of different faiths who share their values.
The Community Renewal Society is an organization of over 70 member churches in the Chicago area who have been working together for civil rights and social justice for over 130 years. CRS engineers social change by participating in public demonstrations and events, lobbying state legislators and other public officials and offering social organizing training sessions. CRS decides what issues to work on by participation from its churches and their members, and by working with other organizations.
Members of UCE could work directly with CRS staff to join a committee or to attend an event or training session. They could go to the Community Renewal Society website to see dates and times of coming events. UCE Members also could talk to any member of the UCE Legislative Action Team, or join our Team’s monthly meeting, usually the second Tuesday of each month, from 5:30 – 6:30 p.m.
