Weekly E-News, September 10, 2020

This Week's Service

Sunday, September 13, 10:30 AM

Grandparents Day

Join us this Sunday in celebration of our grandparents and ancestors!

Join Zoom Meeting Sunday at 10:30am

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89150482747

Meeting ID: 891 5048 2747

Password: chalice

Or, follow the link on our webpage for audio only: uucfm.org

This service brought to you by:

Suellen Kipp, Director of Music

Helen Leddy, Worship Associate

Leslie Gatto, Worship Associate

Lesley Peterson, Musician

Peter Golbitz, Musician

Tech Team:

Walter Peterson, Lead Tech

Lesley Peterson, Tech Team Member

Mark Brandon, Tech Team Member

Jill Carville, Tech Team Coordinator

September Community Sharing

LIFE (Lee Interfaith for Empowerment) is a group of Lee County, Florida congregations coming together based upon our shared value of justice. Their welcoming statement reads in part, "We celebrate today and every day our differences- we speak, pray, and think differently and we welcome each other’s authentic expressions of faith. We do this because we know that bringing diverse congregations together allows us to collectively and more effectively address the issues that face our community. LIFE for justice, justice for life." Current issues include establishing an Affordable Housing Trust Fund to create $3 million of revenue to use each year for housing for those making less than 60% of Area Median Income; addressing the over 200 babies on a waitlist for childcare vouchers; and following up after our state bill was passed requiring law enforcement to document why certain children are arrested, rather than issued a civil citation. LIFE is funded by member congregations and by individual members who make this work possible.

UUCFM Members and Friends,

We want YOU to submit your thoughts, memories, and words of wisdom from your time in the military serving your country. Or, you might speak about one of your favorite veterans in your family. You can shoot the video from your phone and submit to the church office at uuchurch@uucfm.org. If you need help with tech, call the office at 561-2700. The fabulous UUCFM Tech Team will be creating a tribute to our veterans for a November service.

Please submit your Veteran Videos from now up and until October 15th. Please title your email video submission "Veteran Video" to help us keep track of all submissions.

Thank you for your help!

Suellen Kipp

Director of Music

Enhancing Our Website

My name is Lesley Peterson. Not only am I currently serving as the President of the Board of Trustees, I’m also the website developer who created our church’s website, uucfm.org. As our congregation has experienced so many changes over the last few months, it was time to do a number of updates to our website. These updates included providing more information about our virtual services, our online groups and activities, and our lay led services and leadership. But I also want to make you aware of some exciting enhancements to the website!

First, we now have an easy to use toolbar that allows individuals with vision impairments to be able to read the website more easily. Options include making fonts larger or smaller, line spacing farther or closer, even a font designed to make reading easier for those with dyslexia. There is also an option for text-to-speech, so that the words on the website page can be read to you! These changes are fully WCAG (Website Content Accessibility Guidelines) compliant. These enhancements are intended to make our website an easy and friendly resource for our visually impaired members and website visitors.

The other change is a selection tool that allows you to pick which language in which you’d like to read the website. There is a large list of languages available with accurate translations. And, in combination with the text-to-speech feature mentioned above, you can now have the web pages read to you in any of the wide selection of available languages. UUCFM’s website is now officially multi-lingual! This is just another way for us to offer inclusivity to our visitors.

To watch a video showing how to use these new features, please visit:

http://uucfm.org/images/videos/Website_Upgrades_Visual_Multilingual.mp4

UUCFM Online Classes & Groups

Caloosahatchee Mindfulness

The book group is reading White Fragility: Why It's So Hard For White People to Talk About Racism.

“A valuable guide . . . While especially helpful for those new to the critical analysis of whiteness, this work also offers a useful refresher to anyone committed to the ongoing process of self-assessment and anti-oppression work.”

—Library Journal

We are now meeting on Wednesday from 1-2:30 p.m. on Zoom. For more information and to join, contact Helen Leddy at helen.leddy@gmail.com.

The UUCFM Book Club

The UUCFM Book Club will not meet next week. Our next meeting will be Wednesday, September 23rd when we begin discussing Marjorie Stoneham Douglas's classic, The Everglades: River of Grass. We meet on Zoom Wednesdays at 1:00 PM. If you’re joining for the first time, please email Mary Studer at mstuder929@gmail.com and she will send you the link to Zoom.

Social Justice

GRACE Project Request

The GRACE Project will be shipping several boxes to four schools and a women’s shelter in Guatemala, where COVID is further challenging rural families. If you have extras at home, Maya women and children could use: children’s and small women’s shoes, sweaters, pens, pencils and sharpeners, sewing supplies, scissors, children’s educational toys and puzzles, and office supplies. Please leave items for Helen Dixon in the UUCFM Office until September 15, or contact Genelle at grantgenelle@gmail.com to arrange a pick up. Muchísimas gracias.

South Fort Myers Food Pantry

The board and volunteers at the Food Pantry say thank you for the food that you have dropped off during these very difficult months.

The best times to drop off food are 9 AM or 4 PM on Monday at the pantry itself, located at 8260 Cypress Lake Drive, Fort Myers in the back of the Cypress Lake Presbyterian Church. Any size donation will be accepted. Most needed foods are peanut butter & jelly, cereal, breakfast bars, canned fruits and vegetables, pasta and tomato sauce, protein-rich soups and beans. Please, no glass containers.

Caring Network

If you or another member of the Congregation needs some extra attention during this time, your Pastoral Care Committee is here to help as much as we can while keeping us all safe and protected. Our Committee members include Mary Faegre, Joan Hickok, Mary Tracy-Sigman, Patricia Vivier-Naidl, Holley Rauen and Suzanne Ziemer.

If any members of the Congregation are available to help during this crisis, please contact Mary Golbitz.

We can connect with you individually by phone if you are feeling isolated and offer other assistance. Please contact Mary Golbitz for information or assistance at marygcline@gmail.com 207 479-4082 (phone or text) or Holley Rauen at holleyrauen@gmail.com or 239 464-6556.

New Member Spotlight- David & Nancy Hutchins!

David and Nancy Hutchins have both been UUs for over 50 years. They met and married at Paint Branch UU Church in Adelphi, Maryland. After spending a number of years looking for warm winter weather by visiting friends and Road Scholar programs in Florida, they bought a condo in Westminster Golf Community, where their daughter lives. They became snowbirds in 2018.

They joined UUCFM in 2019, and are still active in their Frederick, Maryland congregation.

Both former teachers, they have volunteered in various capacities at the UU congregations they have attended and have agreed to head up the Stewardship Campaign at our church this year. They are delighted with the beautiful campus and encouraged by the warm welcome extended by various programs and people at UUCFM.

They are still active with the Alternative to Violence Project in Maryland, working with men at one of the State prisons. David produces pictures in acrylic and watercolor and enjoys working alongside other artist friends on occasion.