Allison Leaver’s memories of her Southern Baptist church were all positive. The family’s social life revolved around church dinners, church services, summer camp, and social service projects. She remembers her youth group fondly as a place where kids could both have fun and make the world better in small ways.
At college, she began to move away from Southern Baptism as most of her classmates were more fundamentalist than her home congregation. She met her future husband, Eric Leaver on an impromptu study date and were soon a couple. They married and had two children, Reilly and Logan, now 24 and 22 years old. As is often the case, they felt the need to provide them with some religious background. Neither wanted to go back to the religions of their childhood so they began looking for alternatives. After trying another UU church, they found UUCSS where they felt immediately welcomed. Soon she and Erik had a group of friends with kids the same age, Jenny and Steve, Nicole and Doyle, Meredith and Rob, Steve and Elissa, and Kelly and Andrew among others sharing good times and babysitting. She helped start the Families-LUUV (family living our UU values) and organized camping trips with Nicole Levesque for twelve years. Like her home church, UUCSS became the center of her social life.
Allison teaches 4th and 5th grade special ed, a job that is both stressful and rewarding but with no breaks through the summer. Most weeks she tries to relax with Zumba, walking the dog, and doing arts and crafts projects. Even so, she looks fondly at the service projects and housing support that her local Methodist church provides. She’d like to see UUCSS to do similar food pantry and housing assistance making the world better in small but meaningful ways.