Every month we honor one of our many great volunteers.
Emily Harris was a regular church goer as a child but became disillusioned with religion as an adult, and after a family tragedy rejected theism. There were still good memories of what a church could be – supportive, loving, nurturing- but dogma and prejudice got in the way. Seeing how church communities supported their family…
Rarely do we think of middle school religious education as a place of beauty and in that we would be wrong. Along with the chaotic energies that comes with this age are creative energies striving for a place in the world and a place as a UU. In this we are blessed with the teachers…
Jean Snell remembers hearing “Eternal Spirit of Life” at All Souls’, DC and suddenly feeling at home. While her parents Presbyterian Church in Utah had been loving and supportive, she never believed in the Trinity. All Souls’ had the diverse community she loved and the intellectual honesty that she valued. That diversity was lost when…
John Henderson grew up UU in Des Moines, Iowa, and then later in the Princeton, New Jersey, UU church. Like many college students, he wandered off from UUism through college and law school. When he and Patti Poss moved to the DC area, they briefly attended All Souls but quickly found UUCSS to be a comfortable fit. The things that drew and…
Jane Larrick is the volunteer of the month for September. Jane joined UUCSS in April 1991 after her friend and colleague Drew Riggs invited her to come and hear him play at a service. She had been looking for a community of like-minded people and instantly felt she had found it at UUCSS. Jane is…
Doneby Smith and her husband, David Miley, came to UUCSS in about 1995 on the recommendation of Ed Weiner after a brief stint at Cedar Lane UU, which, they decided, wasn’t a good fit for them. Like many, they were especially looking for religious education for their son, Galen, who was 3 at the time. Doneby says that the most intensive activity…
Carol Hamilton has identified as a Unitarian-Universalist all her life. She came to UUCSS in 1996 in search of religious education for her eight-year-old daughter. Yassi Davoodi. She became involved in UUCSS and she and Yassi enjoyed going to UUCSS’s annual retreat at Catoctin, but as a single mother, she said no to frequent requests…
Jim Street is the Volunteer of the Month for May. Jim and his wife Emily Tien came to UUCSS in the early 2000s, looking for a place to build a community with their young kids. Although they visited a number of churches, UUCSS appealed because of its Religious Education Program and the strength of Rev.…
Sharon Snyder is the Volunteer of the Month for April. In 1997, a good friend’s mother told Sharon she needed to join a UU church or a synagogue because she needed a community. At that time UUCSS was advertising its services in the Washington Post. Sharon saw that Rev. Jim Bank was preaching a sermon…
Steve Wilmarth first came to UUCSS with his former wife, Jenny Kelley, in search of a good religious education program for their kids Bryan and Ellie. At his first service he read the Seven Principles on the back of the Order of Service and was amazed, as he had never seen anything like it before. …