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Stretch Goal Added!
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We are both excited and distressed to report that the Church of the Larger Fellowship’s incarcerated membership continues to grow each year. Excited about the prospects of sharing our life-saving and hope building faith as well as distressed that our sibling Unitarian Universalists are caged within the prison industrial complex. We now serve over 1,200 prison members and with that comes an increase in costs, both material and spiritual. It costs the Church of the Larger Fellowship at least $150 per person to provide hope in the form of Unitarian Universalist programming and services to incarcerated individuals. Many people living in prison learn about the UU message of liberation and inclusivity through Church of the Larger Fellowship’s Worthy Now prison ministry outreach.
Every dollar you donate will be doubled!
Can you give $50 to fund hope today?
By contributing to the success of this Faithify Campaign,
you will be helping over 1,200 UUs living in prison.
Your financial support of the Church of the Larger Fellowship Prison Ministry provides vital programming and services to over 1,200 incarcerated Unitarian Universalists:
- Pastoral Care
- UU World
- Quest Monthly
- Worthy Now Prison Ministry Newsletters
- Reading Materials from Skinner House and Beacon Press
- New UU Classes
- Pen Pals
- Tapestry of Faith Religious Education Correspondence Classes
Your generous contributions help the Church of the Larger Fellowship run our letter writing ministry. This program provides one-on-one contact between UUs in the free-world (that’s you) and one of your Unitarian Universalist siblings living in prison. We have over 300 letter writing partnerships. Every year thousands of letters are forwarded through the Church of the Larger Fellowship’s office to our members living in prison. This program is the heart of our ministry—and is a lifeline to many of our members.
“Part of my ministerial calling is focused on making sure that our incarcerated members are seen in the fullness of their humanity. And for that to happen we in the “free” world need to realize that this is not an us vs. them situation because, as Fannie Lou Hamer said, not one of us is free until we all are free.”
—Christina Rivera, Minister of the Worthy Now Prison Network powered by the Church of the Larger Fellowship
This year we are pleased to participate in a partnership with Melchor-Quick Meeting House and The African American Education & Research Organization. We’re collaborating to determine the racial and ethnic identities of our incarcerated members in order to provide more culturally appropriate ministry.
Melchor-Quick Meeting House was created to foster the preservation of African American history and culture. In this project, The African American Education & Research Organization (AAERO) is working with Melchor-Quick Meeting House to improve access of incarcerated African Americans to culturally appropriate materials for the exploration of ethical and moral values and practices.
Currently, the racial and ethnic identities of our incarcerated members are unknown. Our collaboration with these organizations will add race and ethnic identity to our database of nearly 1,200 members.
The cost of all this programming is about $150 per person. It would mean so much to the lives of these members if you, your friends, and/or your congregation could sponsor an incarcerated Unitarian Universalist (or several!) That is less than 50 cents a day to fund this spirit sustaining ministry. And we know that perhaps a different gift amount may be more in your range. The truth is, whatever you can give, every dollar counts; every dollar helps bring programming and the message of hope and Love to Unitarian Universalists living in prison all across this country.Being loud and proud about our faith comes in many forms, so we invite you to consider if this is the way you can bless someone’s life with the hope of Unitarian Universalism. Sponsor a sibling UU who is living behind prison walls!
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Stretch Goals
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Thank you so much for supporting our Faithify campaign and for your interest in learning more about what the prison ministry is like at the Church of the Larger Fellowship.
This Faithify campaign is so important to the incarcerated Unitarian Universalists of the CLF. What we're asking you to do is support the membership of our over 1,200 incarcerated members who live behind prison walls all across the country.
Through our Worthy Now Prison Network, we are able to provide programming for UU’s who live in various forms of incarceration. In practice and on principle, we do not ask for financial stewardship from any of our incarcerated members. The programming we offer to our incarcerated UU’s comes in the form of receiving a variety of printed material which includes:
- Two prison ministry newsletters a year
- A printed copy of the UU World magazine
- A printed copy of the monthly CLF Quest magazine.
Additionally, with your help, we are able to offer our UU incarcerated members a number of the Tapestry of Faith classes which we have converted into correspondence format. These rich materials supply valuable religious education to our incarcerated siblings.
Perhaps the best thing of all is, after becoming members and completing the New UU Class, they are eligible to receive a pen-pal connection with a free-world person (that's you and me who live our lives outside of prison walls.)
These pen-pal relationships are often the lifeline for giving and sustaining hope within prison. It is the connection to the Power of We that is so vital to our Unitarian Universalist faith. Can you imagine hearing that you're worthy of love and justice inside a system that often dehumanizes your very presence?
The cost of all this programming is about $150 per person. It would mean so much to the lives of these members if you, your friends, and/or your congregation could sponsor an incarcerated Unitarian Universalist (or several!) That is less than 50 cents a day to fund this spirit sustaining ministry.
And we know that perhaps a different gift amount may be more in your range. The truth is, whatever you can give, every dollar counts; every dollar helps bring programming and the message of hope and Love to Unitarian Universalists living in prison all across this country.
Being loud and proud about our faith comes in many forms, so we invite you to consider if this is the way you can bless someone’s life with the hope of Unitarian Universalism. Sponsor a sibling UU who is living behind prison walls!
Our so-called Library here at Lumberton Correctional Institution is a broom closet about 10 x 10 ft, there’s no table to do book research and no seating. And proper research books especially legal books are non-existent.
—Jackie Morehead, Church of the Larger Fellowship Member
One of the incredible benefits that we can offer our CLF incarcerated members is our reading packet program. In an amazing partnership with Beacon Press and Skinner House Books, we are able to send reading materials to our members in prison. Because of the many rules and regulations surrounding books in prisons, we can only do this by the generous sharing of text from Beacon Press and Skinner House Books of UU identified books. The Church of the Larger Fellowship has permission to print a chapter at a time and share them in letter form. This way people like Jackie Moorehead have access to more books—more than what’s in a small broom closet.
But we need your help!
There is significant paper, printing, and postage costs that go into this program.
By funding all or part of the $150 per person program cost,
you are amplifying our important message that people living in prison
are Worthy Now of Love and Justice.
Last year we sent over 2,600 mailings to our members!
Wouldn’t it be cheaper to send books? Possibly, but prison regulations across the country are diverse and the rules around books are so complex that this is the best way for us to share Unitarian Universalism with our CLF members living in prison. Books such as Testimony; UU Humanist Voices in Unitarian Universalism; Amethyst Beach: Meditations; Our Seven Principles in Story and Verse; and Everyday Spiritual Practice ~ Simple Pathways for Enriching Your Life, are bringing Unitarian Universalism to Church of the Larger Fellowship members experiencing incarceration.
We have over 1,200 incarcerated UU’s depending on us.
Can you give $50 or more to fund our Worthy Now ministry?
* Thanks to the generous challenge grants supported by the Unitarian Universalist Funding Program, every dollar given to this Faithify campaign will be matched.
One thought on “Worthy Now: Sponsor an Incarcerated Unitarian Universalist”
Leave a Reply to Tanner Linden Cancel reply
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10/12/2020Thank you for doing this work! How can I start watching the VUu again Would you please create a VUU reminder like you have for CLF services$900.00
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10/08/2020Thank you for doing this important work!$10.00
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10/06/2020$20.00
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10/06/2020$100.00
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10/06/2020$20.00
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10/06/2020$50.00
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10/06/2020$10.00
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Anonymous10/06/2020Grateful to do my part sponsor 1 of our members this year!$150.00
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10/06/2020$50.00
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Anonymous10/06/2020$50.00
Tanner Linden
I work at the Church of the Larger Fellowship and I’ve witnessed the life-saving power of this ministry first hand. We serve people who feel rejected by their family, their previous faith, and society, as a whole. We find people at their lowest and offer them hope in the form of Unitarian Universalist programming and services. Hope is for everyone, not just those who are “free.” Please give to this campaign. Every dollar does directly to supporting this ministry.