Social Justice Team
Our purpose: to educate and inspire action in response to current events that call for social justice
The focus of our work is protecting the environment, supporting asylum seekers, dismantling racism and white privilege, and ending homelessness. We also support other organizations and activities such as Family Promise, gun safety events, and get-out-the-vote efforts. Small interest groups form as the Spirit leads.
Recent efforts:
Participating in a series discussing MLK’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” with members of Freeport UCC in Oct/Nov. Forming two action groups, one on a Permanent Commission to address racial injustice in Maine via legislative action, the other on criminal justice.
Attending protests in the wake of the tragic killing of George Floyd. Others have been working on the MSAD51 Equity and Inclusion initiative.
Taking the online YWCA 21 Day Challenge to learn about Racism and share information about our takeaways from this excellent course. The course was especially timely due to current events involving racism in policing and criminal justice.
Supporting the campaign against gun violence on “Wear Orange” weekend, where we lit up our church steeple in solidarity with all who have experienced gun violence in our country and provided resources for our church family regarding gun violence prevention.
Plogging for Earth Day/Easter season (walking and picking up litter along the way) and was very successful with over 70 participants. We also had two worship services with environmental themes.
Walking for Habitat for Humanity, we raised over $8550 for affordable housing.
Hosting a Welcoming Library to celebrate diversity in picture books.
Welcoming Asylum Seekers who arrived in Portland last summer. We supported the Asylum Seekers Temporary Housing Team in a variety of ways including setting up a Welcome Center in our church for ELL (English Language Learning) and providing transportation to the asylum seekers in our area. We also helped move families into their apartments and round up furniture and other necessities.
Partnering with the Greely High School Civil Rights Team in a film screening of Dawnland at Greely High School.
Joining Greely Middle School in support of Unity Day.
Participating in a committee looking at homelessness in our community-specifically at the high school level.
Hosting film series during Lent on issues of race, climate change, and discrimination.
Future possibilities:
We hope to reschedule invited guest Dr. Barbara Merson, Exec. Director of the Jewish Film Festival when things reopen. This particular choice of film was inspired by one of our youth who is on the Greely Anti-Defamation team.
We postponed our plan for a Wabanaki workshop on mapping for a later date when folks may once again gather together.
We welcome participation in our meetings (currently on ZOOM) and look forward to working towards equity and justice for all.
