Jimmy Schreiber and Marcia Joiner met and became friends in a Young Religious Unitarian Universalist group when they were 16 and 14, respectively. They went off to separate colleges but became a couple living for a time in a DC hippie commune with future UUCSS member Carolyn Kirk Dutcher. Later, they bought a house in DC and began raising their two children, Janah and Jackson.
Through much of this time, they were unchurched, although if you asked them, they’d say they were UUs. They moved to the Maryland suburbs and began hearing from Jimmy’s sister, Barbara, and her husband, Ken Iobst, about UUCSS, the Catoctin fall retreat, and other great activities. Janah was in middle school, and both Jimmy and Barbara felt that UUCSS could provide an alternative friend group, especially with cousins Adam, Paul, and Wayne already there. This worked out well, and Jackson started Religious Education (RE) soon after. Meanwhile, Jimmy and Marcia, feeling somewhat guilty about dropping off the kids and driving away, decided to start coming and joined the church in 1994.
Their children were active at UUCSS first, and then Jimmy and Marcia became active. Jimmy and Marcia organized the Catoctin Retreat three times and also organized the Auction and fellowship dinner. For many years, they ran the Activities Committee that organized the Christmas party, end-of-church year luncheon, and countless small events. Jimmy has been on the Board and has been Property Chair — one of the more demanding jobs in the church. He has been a DRE support person and has a special place in his heart for children and youth RE. Many of us have had children in the three-year-old RE class that Jimmy and Ed Johnson taught, and there may even be members who remember the kindness and patience they experienced there. Marcia has been a lay minister for our church for more than 20 years and facilitates the Soul Maers biweekly discussion group with Sharon Snyder.
These days, much of their time is spent caring for their grandchildren who live in the area. Marcia continues to be a hospice volunteer, an activity she finds deeply rewarding. Jimmy is a tinkerer, finding cast-off objects and repairing them to donate to the Wider Circle charity. They both say that if you participate at UUCSS, from volunteering to just showing up, you get more out of it regarding personal growth and community. Certainly, they have made UUCSS a much better and more joyful place.