Why I Pledge
Diana Forrest
Why I Give
I give because this is the place and you are the ones.
This is the place I come to meet my friends.
You are the ones whose company provides me with shared meals, laughter and fun activities.
This is the place I learn how to be a better person.
You are the ones whose spiritual guidance and generosity shows me the way.
This is the place I come to live my values.
You are the ones who provide the service projects, discussions and actions that support our seven principles.
This is the place I am able to give to others through leadership, committee work, and joining the web of care.
You are the ones who give me the opportunity.
This is the place where my daughter’s memorial service was celebrated. You are the ones who comforted me.
This place is a home.
You are family.
Beth & Bridget Lemur
We’ve been asked to speak about what the fellowship means to us, and why we choose to pledge to the fellowship. For us the answer is two-fold.
As parents of 4 children, we continue to be impressed with the types of things our children are exposed to via the RE program. Everything from the O.W.L. program to summer camp to coming of age has had a positive effect on our children, and the way they perceive the world. I love that there are people we respect willing to mentor our children and teens. Through this fellowship, we’ve connected with people who have inspired us and encouraged us in our parenting journey.
Secondly, I continue to be impressed with what this fellowship accomplishes on its relatively small budget. A couple of years ago, I was asked to engage in some work with the budget committee. My professional work is with the City of Boulder, as a financial manager. I viewed this request with a certain amount of angst, since finances are typically a stressful matter. Accustomed to managing a multi-million dollar budget, I was astounded to discover what a modest amount the fellowship operated on.
Despite the shift in the economy requiring all of us to tighten our belts, our family has continued to increase our pledge by a modest amount every year; for example this year by $10 per month to bring us to Supporter level. It’s not much, but we have absolute confidence that any money we are able to give will be invested strategically in the things that matter the most to the fellowship, and its members. The change in the economy has forced all of us to find ways to do more with less. That same shift has affected the fellowship. But we believe the challenge has been met with an impressive amount of determination and creativity.
We find this fellowship to be an inspiration to living simply, and investing in the things that matter most.
Wayne Itano
Why do we give? That’s easy. We give because we belong to the Fellowship, and if you belong, you should give.
I won’t dwell on how much we give, but for some years, we have given over 5% of our income to the Fellowship and over 5% to other charities.
The real question is not, why do we give, but why do we belong.
Could it just be habit? I was raised UU. I’ve been UU around 50 years. We have been members of this particular Fellowship for over 22 years.
But habit isn’t enough. For 15 years, after leaving home for college, I was content to stay home on Sundays and read the New York Times.
What brought me back was the feeling that the UU RE that I had had was so important that I had to have it for my kids.
Now, my kids are grown, and done with RE. The youngest left home for college 8 years ago. So why do I keep coming?
The conventional answer is Community, but that requires some explanation. If you know me, you know I’m not all that social.
Left to myself, I’d be home, reading the Sunday New York Times, or maybe out running, training for my next marathon.
What the Fellowship gives me is opportunities to give back, much more than I could ever take advantage of.
Like helping at the Homeless Shelter, like teaching RE.
Another example. You may not know that I was the first, and for years the only, male in the Fellowship trained to teach the OWL human sexuality classes. I taught the junior high curriculum twice and the elementary curriculum twice.
Believe me, it didn’t come naturally, and it wasn’t easy, especially with the junior high school kids.
But it had its rewards. In public, the kids would complain that they were only coming because their parents were making them. But I found out that, secretly, they actually looked forward to it. Doing something for a junior high school kid and feeling appreciated. That’s quite a reward.
So I continue to belong because the Fellowship brings me back, to community, in spite of myself.
After my parents moved to California 40 years ago, they never joined another religious community. I wish they had. I think they missed out on a lot. Now my father is dying. He entered hospice care a week ago. If a minister presides over his funeral, he or she will be a stranger, who never knew him when his body and mind were well. And that makes me sad.
So, to conclude, you all have your reasons for belonging, or you wouldn’t be here, and if you belong, you should give. Thank you.
Chris Itano
When Lydia asked us why we supported the Fellowship both with our service as well as our finances, this question was really easy to answer. When raising children, as parents, our goal was to raise children with strong moral and ethical values, courageous enough to stand up for those beliefs despite social pressure and personal sacrifices, to teach them to be passionate about what they do in their life, to love the human ability to create beauty through music, art, and literature, to have a lifelong passion for learning, to be kind, compassionate and generous to other human beings, to care for their planet and to live their lives so that each day counts. Where else in Boulder is it possible to find a group of people whose lives are a testament to these goals? I began to think about the incredible people from this fellowship and the lives that they shared with my children. Unfortunately many of them are no longer alive. Larry Senesh shared with them his personal experiences of the Holocaust and his escape from Hungary and his lifelong commitment to peace and to education. Frank Abbott who was the brainchild behind the Auraria Campus and WICHE (Western Interstate Commission of Higher Education) allowing students from the western states to cross state lines in certain disciplines not offered in their states with in-state tuition, and who as a white male created a powerful national program to promote students of color in the professorate for higher education which I relied upon in my role as Vice Provost for Diversity and Equity. Lois Abbott, now retired as faculty in Molecular Cellular and Developmental Biology mentored my daughter Michelle in molecular biology when she was a high school student and she is now completing her dissertation in the area of biophysics with an emphasis in viruses and immunology. She wants to determine how virus attack and enter healthy cells and learn how to prevent that from happening. Nicole had Marlies West as the Gifted and Talented coordinator at University Hill – where both her son and daughter taught, as did Mariane Balassa’s daughter. Nicole is an international correspondent and has written a book about the impact of AIDS on women and children in sub-Saharan Africa, No Place Left to Bury the Dead . She learned from Dorothy Rupert, a Unitarian and interned with her. I give these examples because my children not only learned about Unitarians and their lives in RE, Thomas Jefferson, Susan B Anthony, Charles Darwin, Charles Dickens, Emerson and Thoreau, but they learned it by interacting with the “heroes†they met and interacted with through this fellowship… Nachmans, the Smiths, the Sidles, the Stepaneks, the Winstons, the Maldes, the Colwells, the Nichols, the Bulthaups … the list is endless. My daughter Nicole is contemplating a job offer but is conflicted because she’s not sure that in this job, she can have the impact she has had in fighting for social issues, such as the plight of immigrants throughout Europe, AIDS, racial discrimination and other issues about which she is extremely passionate. There is no monetary value for the contributions and influence that members of this fellowship have had on the lives of my children. We can never repay the benefits we have reaped and we hope that future generations of children and adults continue to be profoundly influenced by the incredible lives and people in this fellowship.