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In-Person & Virtual Worship Service

this Sunday, February 26th at 10:30 am

Rev. Eileen Wiviott is on a scheduled sabbatical starting Monday, February 27th until Sunday, May 28th. In her absence, please contact:

• Rev. Elizabeth Harding, Sabbatical Minister covering pastoral care: Tuesdays, 10:30am-3:30 pm, or by appointment.
• Rev. Allison Farnum, Sabbatical Minister covering worship and staffing: Tuesdays from 10:30am-3:30pm, or by appointment.
• Rev. Susan Frances, Assistant Minister for Congregational Life: Thursdays and Fridays, 10:30am-2:30 pm, or by appointment.

Hats off to the Pledge Team

Our Hats are Off to the Pledge Drive Team which was beautifully coordinated by Susan and Tom Carlton. They worked with Rev. Eileen and Sandra Robinson to orchestrate a smooth and effective drive and they are continuing to work to secure outstanding pledges. Tom, UCE’s Treasurer, spent hours creating budget and pledge ask spreadsheets to track pledges and measure our progress. Susan has been the main orchestrator of the communication, support, and celebration teams. She kept us all on track and focused on various roles. The staff is extremely grateful for all of your hard work and the work of the whole pledge drive team that pulled together to work cooperatively to support our shared ministry and help us to fly!

Pledge Drive Coordinator: Susan Carlton

Treasurer and head of the Accounting Team: Tom Carlton

Support Team Co-leads: Laura Etchen and Susan Carlton; making sure everyone was able to complete their forms with ease.

Support Team members: Rob Avery, Barbara Badr, Peg Boccard, Barbara Butz, Peggy Cloonan, Bruce Cook, Bryan Durning, Sallie Eggers, Meredith Haydon, Woody Haynes, Lois Korda, Joyce Lofstrom, Linda Piele, Mary Beth Roth, Margaret Schatz, Amy Statton, with special thanks to Jim Strickler for helping put the team together

Celebration Team: Dan and Gillian Lawrence and Jenny Walsh coordinated a wonderful celebration brunch on the 19th lifting all of our spirits. These folks helped by bringing food and with set up and clean up: Chris Yoo, Cathy Deamant, Judy Holman, Alice Chrostowski, Sarah Bloethe, Margaret Schatz, Renee Gatsis, and Erlene Howard

Communication Team: Joyce Lofstrom, Ally Hunter, Carla Williams, Emily Eckwahl-Sanna, Adam Gough, and David Carling helped create clear and eye-catching letters, web site and forms.

Accounting Team: David Carling and Vickie Doebele have been hard at work tracking and entering all the pledges.

And The Liddell Family, Dana Deane, and Ann Gadzikowski for speaking so eloquently and movingly about why they support UCE.



It has taken a village to carry out this pledge drive.

Thank you for your generosity, hard work, dedication, and love of UCE!

Googling at UCE

On Tuesday, February 28th, Adam Gough will be holding Google Docs Training at 1pm over Zoom. Please feel free to join!

Retired (But never Retiring!) Women



Tuesday, Feb. 28, 4.30-6.30pm, in the back of the sanctuary for a potluck and then conversation.



 This month, Carol and Lynn will be leading us in "A Laughing Matter!". With what is happening in our world, our state, our lives today: we need some good laughs!! 

Please come with a joke, an anecdote, a line--something that made you laugh--and that will make us all laugh!!

From Nominating and Recruiting Committee

Bylaws Revision Proposal

In anticipation of the annual congregational meeting this spring, the Nominating and Recruiting (N&R) Committee is proposing a few bylaws revisions related to their work.

First, is to change the committee name to the “Nominating Committee,” which will align with UUA and UCE leadership development team models. Second, to seek and retain leaders at UCE, we propose to reduce to six members serving two-year terms (three members elected each year for two-year terms). We also propose inclusion of language on how to handle vacancies on the committee. Click here to read the proposed bylaws changes.

N&R members will be available for seeking comments and discussion at a Bylaws Revision Informational Meeting on Sunday, March 5, 2023, at 9:30 am on zoom.

You are invited to learn more about the Doctrine of Discovery through a 90-minute play about love of land, loss of land, and what it means to “own” something.

We Own This Now



When: Friday, March 17, 2023 at 7:00pm and Saturday, March 18, 2023 at 3:00pm

Where: Reba Place Church, 620 Madison St, Evanston, IL 60202

Admission: Free

Tickets: Save the date and stay tuned for how to get tickets.

8th Principle Concert by Kristin Lems

UCE's own professional folksinger and songwriter, Kristin Lems, is offering a concert with music inspired by the 8th Principle on Friday, March 24, 2023 at 7:00 pm in the sanctuary or watch virtually (NOTE: Date Change). This is a Serendipity Auction event and tickets are still available at $15. Pay in advance through Eventbrite (click button below) or at the door. For those wishing to watch the concert virtually, a link will be sent to those who have purchased a ticket. Further questions, contact: auction@ucevanston.org.

The 8th Principle that UCE adopted reads: “We, a member congregation of the Unitarian Universalist Association, covenant to affirm and promote: journeying toward spiritual wholeness by working to build a diverse multicultural Beloved Community by our actions that accountably dismantle racism and other oppressions in ourselves and our institutions.”

You’ve heard her wonderful music and her singing at our services and this is a chance to hear her in concert. Kristin’s music has been performed nationwide at events for the ERA and women’s rights, safe energy, peace, racial equality and other social justice causes.

2023 UUA General Assembly

The 2023 UUA General Assembly will be held in Pittsburgh, PA from June 21 – 25 online and in-person. 

Registration is now open. Click here for details.

The Denominational Affairs Team is asking you to consider being a Delegate to this General Assembly. Delegates will be considering changes to the UUA Bylaws, Article 2, that address racism, non-human life, and the inclusivity of the democratic process in our Principles, Purposes, and Sources. Delegates can attend in-person and virtually.

If you are interested, please contact Peggy Boccard via REALM or at admin@ucevanston.org.

We will continue to provide information via the Newsletter. 

Families First Friday – March 3, 5:30-7:30pm in Room 3

Join us for a family-friendly game night! This will be an appetizer potluck, so bring your favorite munchies to share. We’ll have an assortment of games or bring your family’s favorite. Sign up here.

Parents Circle – March 5 at 9:30am in Room 13 – All parents are invited to meet to share the joys and challenges of parenting before the worship service.

Lunch-Making for Connections for the Homeless



The Family Ministry Team invites all ages to help make lunches for Connections for the Homeless. You can sign up here to donate supplies or to deliver them or help assemble the lunches after worship on March 12.

Our Whole Lives (OWL) Sexuality Education program

Of course, there are also programs and events that we continue to cherish, such as the Our Whole Lives (OWL) Sexuality Education program. This year, our youth are gathering one weekend a month with youth from 1st Unitarian and 2nd Unitarian for this important curriculum. UCE will be hosting the youth on March 17-18, and we could use some help with greeting and directing youth and facilitators, providing snacks for the weekend, and tidying up on Saturday afternoon. It’s an easy way to support our youth and our UU values! If interested, please sign up here.

UCE Non-Fiction Book Group: The Big Thirst by Charles Fishman

The nonfiction book group will this Sunday, February 26, 2023 at 2 p.m. via Zoom.

The Big Thirst brilliantly explores our strange and complex relationship to water.

We delight in watching waves roll in from the ocean; we take great comfort from sliding into a hot bath; and we will pay a thousand times the price of tap water to drink our preferred brand of the bottled version. We love water--but at the moment, we don't appreciate it or respect it. We need to rethink our essential relationship to water and bring creativity to ensuring that we'll always have plenty of it.

UCE Fiction Book Group: Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston.

One of the most important works of twentieth-century American literature — perhaps the most widely read and highly regarded novel in the entire canon of African American literature — Zora Neale Hurston's beloved 1937 classic, Their Eyes Were Watching God, is an enduring Southern love story sparkling with wit, beauty, and heartfelt wisdom. A Black woman who refuses to live in sorrow, bitterness, fear, or foolish romantic dreams, Janie Crawford is fiercely independent, dodging the suppressions her men urge on her until she meets TeaCake, who loves her full potential.  

Friday, March 17, 7-8:30pm on ZOOM

Next Reads:

April 21: Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler

May 19: I Will Die in a Foreign Land by Kalani Pickhart.

Expand Ownership of Anti-Racism at UCE!

It's time to enroll for Beloved Conversations online class!  About 20% of our UCE congregation have taken this course, and you can too!  Click the button below to register. Scholarships are available.  This is an online course that includes self exploration of resources, small group discussions, and large group presentations.  From the Fahs educators: 

We are currently building new communities of learners in both of our Gathering Our Selves programs (for Black, Indigenous, People of Color participants) and our Un/Learning for Liberation program (for white participants). Join us for a deep dive into the personal, transformative, spirit-growing work each of us needs to do around issues of race, identity, and justice, in relationship with other folks who share some similar experiences!

Registration will run from February 1st through February 28th and the Spring Term will kick off on March 13th, 2023. Whether this is your first time joining us or you are considering returning for another term of the program, we would love to have you as a part of our learning community! Spring and Fall content are different, so even if you were with us in the fall, you can join us again for entirely new learning! If you participated in a previous term of BCV: Within, you can save 20% off your registration using coupon code BCVALUMSPRING23

Check out our Beloved Conversations website for lots of information about Within and all of our exciting programs!

Post Carding for Consequential Wisconsin

Supreme Court Election

Make a big difference with a little effort! Wisconsin is holding elections to replace a retiring Supreme Court justice. The result will impact Wisconsin for years to come. 

A POSITIVE outcome will...

• Safeguard abortion rights in Wisconsin by preventing the enforcement of a law passed in 1849, 70 years before the 19th amendment gave women the right to vote

• Address Wisconsin’s severely gerrymandered map, widely considered to be the nation's most egregious, which constricts the voice of progressives

• Prevent Wisconsin’s legislature from disenfranchising voting rights during the 2024 presidential election

These off-year state Supreme Court elections are notoriously low-turnout— so get-out-the-vote efforts can have an outsized effect. This election will have a nonpartisan judicial ballot — thus voters need more encouragement to be informed, and VOTE.

Boots on the Ground!

Supermarket Legends, a very effective, non-partisan GOTV organization, registers voters at DMVs in Milwaukee. The work is well organized, impactful, and rewarding. Volunteers are needed! Reach out directly to

Jim Balk for info on training and hours, or contact Carolyn Laughlin (REALM or admin@ucevanston.org).

Join the Abortion Access Team

Are you ready to take action to address the access issues caused by the Dobbs decision? UCE’s Abortion Access Team meets the 2nd Wednesday of each month on Zoom from 7:00-8:30 pm. Please join us for the next meeting on March 8, 2023. Please contact Jean Butzen or Jon Siegel through REALM or at admin@ucevanston.org to learn more.

Abortion Access Fundraising

The UCE Abortion Access Team is seeking individuals to host informational and fundraising meetings to benefit the Chicago Abortion Fund, which provides support for people facing barriers to accessing abortion care. Hosts invite congregants and friends to either a Zoom or in-person gathering during April, May, or June. The Abortion Access Team will provide the invitation, a facilitator, and a script for the meeting. Thank you for taking action to reclaim abortion access! Please contact Jean Butzen or Jon Siegel through REALM or at admin@ucevanston.org to learn more.

Giving House Continues... February is CANNED SOUP month

We are accepting donations of CANNED SOUP in the giving house for the month of February.

The Giving house is a small wooden "house" that is located in the front lobby. We are partnering with a new free food supplier for the food insecure.

Clarence Weaver and his wife Beverly in March 2020 responded to the covid crisis by setting up a nonprofit organization and using 

their storefront (C&W Market & Ice Cream) to distribute free foods to those in need.

They provide fresh meat, vegetables and fruit along with nonperishable food items to seniors, District 65 families and those experiencing homelessness and food insecurity. They serve almost 50 people every other Saturday morning. They are continuing this service to our community

Since they have plenty of storage, we can support their generous work by providing nonperishable items. We will be collecting one type of non-perishable food each month. February is CANNED SOUP month.

 C&W Market & Ice Cream is a Black owned business on the corner of Dodge and Church. This is a prime location for food distribution.  You can also support this business by buying Ice Cream and/or other sundries there. Thanks for your donation.