Tina Borror has successfully chaired the auction four times, been the head of the music committee for six years, and been a vibrant member of the UUCSS musical community ever since she started attending services at UUCSS. Tina and Marty Atias first visited UUCSS in 2010, looking for a spiritual home and community in their…

Charles Alexander is the November Volunteer of the Month. Charles first came to UUCSS over a decade ago. He and his then five-year-old daughter, Sydney, did some exploring together to find a religious place for themselves, and found UUCSS. Charles has been coming to UUCSS ever since. He is attracted to UUCSS as a place…

Al Nathan is the Volunteer of the Month for October. Al was a member of the Healing Task Force and is a member of the Diversity Team and the Racial Justice Task Force. Al had never heard of Unitarian-Universalism until he started dating Eli Briggs and heard about it from her. He started coming to…

Gregg Harry is the Volunteer of the Month for September. Gregg first came to UUCSS in 2011 after moving with his family to the area. He had previously attended a UU church in Massachusetts and wanted to bring his daughter Morgan up in a UU church. Although he intended to visit three or four local…

Cynthia Curry-Daniel began attending UUCSS in the fall of 2013. A local sisterfriend who also grew up in the black church tradition (and is an ordained minister) knew how deeply Cynthia desired a way to tend to her spiritual needs. Her friend suggested that Unitarian Universalism, which Cynthia knew almost nothing about at the time,…

Brian Beard originally came to UUCSS in 1970 to attend RE classes after his family moved to this area from Oklahoma City (where they had to drive a long way to the only UU church). In the early 70s, UUCSS did not have a full-time minister but his parents loved the community they found here…

Maggie Hayes grew up in a Methodist family in Kansas, but early in her college years she came to the realization that she was no longer a believer.  For most of her adult life, the New York Times (especially the crossword puzzle) was her preferred way to spend Sunday morning.  Yes, there was a foray into Unitarian-Universalism at Cedar Lane more than 25 years ago, but she didn’t develop much of a connection with that church.  After retiring from the State Department, and at the end of a long marriage, space opened up for a small “s” spirituality, and Maggie began to see a place for a church community in her life.  So, encouraged by long-time friends Doneby Smith and David Miley, she arrived at our doorstep.

Michelle Levesque had tried but had accepted that religion wasn’t going to help her understand her mother’s death when she was 14.  Even so on Christmas Eve, 1990 she suggested to her sister, Nicole Levesque, “Why don’t we go to that thing you go to?”  The thing Nicole went to was a Unitarian Universalist Church and there was one in Chandler, AZ reasonably close by.

In his seventeen years Matthew Rice has never missed a Catoctin weekend. What inspired him then and inspires him now is that unbeatable combination of community in a beautiful natural setting. Protecting our natural world has become extremely important in Matthew’s life. He believes that our culture is unsustainable in its use of resources and from the age of twelve has been a vegetarian.

Daniel Clark remembers being in his crib and seeing the faces of his family, most often his mother and his African-American brother and sister. That foundation experience along with being a birthright UU led him to a life that lives and breathes for racial justice.