WHAT HAS THE BUILDING PROJECT ACCOMPLISHED OVER THE SUMMER? Since our late-June start-up, dozens of workers and trucks and other impressive pieces of equipment have been busily at work. Tons of dirt have been removed from the western hillside, to make room for our two-story addition. Provisions for drainage and utilities have been emplaced. Many cubic yards of cement have been pumped in to lay footings for the foundation. Masonry and steel are outlining our envisioned spaces. Management teams have coalesced. The Building Project's Task Force for closing the Gap has zoomed in with spreadsheets and calendars to prepare for communicating with the congregation about financial status and possibilities, coming in September. It's all very exciting! You can take a virtual peek at the ongoing work by visiting the Building Project webpages, See weekly updates to the Photo Gallery here. The Building Project Task Force leaders are eager to respond to your questions or expressions of interest - please contact us directly here.

SHARE THE PLATE SEPT. 13, HABITAT FOR HUMANITY 

This year's Covid virus has made safe homes ever more essential, as we all seek secure shelter. With our church's Habitat for Humanity mission, we have the opportunity to provide a new, safe home for a local family. The Sept. 13 STP will help provide funds to build a house in a new 26-home development adjacent to Hillsborough's Fairview community. Our church has a strong history of partnering with Habitat and other churches to provide homes for families who are cost-burdened and may live in substandard or overcrowded housing. Building Hope partners (St. Thomas More, United Church of Chapel Hill, Trinity Lutheran, Chapel of the Cross, and our church) pay half the costs; Habitat the other half. Families repay the Habitat share. When possible, church members help with construction. The Sept. 13 Share the Plate will help us build this house. Please make your donation online or by checks payable to The Community Church of Chapel Hill UU. (Put "Habitat" in the memo line.) Thank you. For more information, email Kathy Farinola here.

SHARE THE PLATE for CHARLES HOUSE 

The September 27th SHARE THE PLATE benefits Charles House, which has helped families care for their elders for 30 years. The epidemic closed the day care program in March, so it has adapted by supporting caregiver families, facilitating caregiver support groups, offering learning opportunities for students, and providing support for staff. The day program moved online with Virtual Charles House, offering free, twice-daily Zoom sessions to engage participants while giving respite to their families. The pandemic also highlights the work of Charles House's two neighborhood Eldercare Homes, operating residential care with a strong need to manage the risks of the virus exposure to all, while striving to provide a "normal" home life for residents. With a shared legacy, our church has been a long time supporter of Charles House. We want them to survive in this difficult time, supporting them in caring for elders now and ready to reopen the day care program, as soon as that is safe.

FALL PROGRAM FOR CHILDREN AND YOUTH MINISTRY BEGINS SEPTEMBER 13 Our Soul Matters Theme for September is Renewal. There are lots of ways for families to connect with church. This fall, we are offering take home kits for children. The Sunday morning worship videos will be back. Coming of Age will begin. Plus, we have lots of ways for children, youth and parents to build community.

CONTINUE OUR VOTING COLLABORATION WITH NC NAACP Side with Love is excited to announce that over 50 members and church friends wrote over 2,000 postcards in partnership with the NC NAACP and Reclaim Our Vote to help reach voters who need support with getting to the polls this November. This was in partnership with UUs statewide who wrote over 25,000!
These postcards interlock with another critical piece of our collaboration with the NAACP: calling the voters we wrote to with information on registering, absentee ballots, and voting locations/times in their counties. UUs nationwide will be joining us in this effort. We're hoping to organize a phone banking virtual party in September for our community- Join us here or pledge to make call on your own!

As Val Vickers and Paul Mitchell move on to the Charlotte area, both the Buildings & Grounds and Immigrant Justice Initiative committees want to recognize some of the community they have built with us during their time with us here at The Community Church.
Val led the B&G Sacred Gardener group, renovating our Courtyard gardens from a couple of Lantana plants and lots of weeds to a variety of flowering perennials that delight us throughout the season. Starting in 2017, with cast-off plants from a local garden, Val recruited a group of like-minded "green thumbs" and began the transformation. Three years later, her vision has blossomed into our beautiful Courtyard display gardens tended by a dedicated group of B&G
Sacred Gardeners.
Paul has invested much of his effort in our Immigrant Justice Initiative.  His optimistic, balanced,can-do attitude were invaluable to its Steering, Communication and Fund-raising Committees. Paul's Spanish-speaking skills, patience and good humor made him a primary translator for our
El Salvadorian guest who speaks a dialect that makes communication difficult.  He also led the
Faithify request that helped us afford this work.  We will continue to benefit from Paul's contributions as he plans to maintain his involvement, even from afar.

COOKBOOK DEADLINE EXTENDED TO SEPTEMBER 30, 2020

As Rare Women, we build relationships in small groups by sharing our lives and the gifts, myths, and challenges of growing older. Newcomers are welcome and are encouraged to join any one of three existing groups. All groups meet twice a month to discuss specific topics. Beginning with the September 10th meeting (Bonnie Gilliom's group), we will be discussing chapters in Women Rowing North - Navigating Life's Currents and Flourishing as We Age by Mary Pipher. The other two groups will begin on September 17th (rotating leadership) and 21st (Joann Haggerty's group). All groups will discuss Chapter 1: A New Stretch of the River and Chapter 2: The Lay of the Land in Section. See the Rare Women's webpage, here for the list of topics and meeting dates and times for each of the three groups. Suggested discussion questions can be found in this file, here. Contact us here to join our email list.As Rare Women, we build relationships in small groups by sharing our lives and the gifts, myths, and challenges of growing older. 

SPIRITUAL EXPLORATION FOR ADULTS -- THE ACTIVE SOUL: POETRY AS SURVIVAL Learn to write the personal lyric in a workshop led by Cheryl Wilder, poet and church member. Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "There is no greater value than that of the active souls." As Unitarian Universalists, we are a group of active souls-doers who make the world a better place for all. In his book, Poetry as Survival, Gregory Orr explores the active soul of the lyric poet. Traversing between her inner mysteries and her exterior self, the lyric poet actively takes hold of her emotional life rather than passively endures it. Grief, love, awe, despair-writing a personal lyric is an exploration of our deepest emotions, individual existential crises, as well as outer circumstances, such as violence, loss of a loved one, or poverty. Explore your active soul through poem-making. We will read and discuss lyric poems. We will write our own poems, participate in a writing workshop, and have a class poetry reading. No experience necessary. Saturdays 10-11:30 AM, 9/26, 10/3, 10/10, 10/17 Register here.