The Social Action Collection (SAC) is our congregation’s outreach to the larger community, both with monetary donations each month but also with engagement in the mission of organizations whose work reflects our values. This year we decided to choose the organizations not through a general call and then a voting process, but by using our Long-Range plan for Social Justice: Equity, Justice and Peace for all People, and seeing if we can engage more deeply in organizations we already support. We hope that our efforts to engage personally with organizations and become proximate to their work will offer more than money to their efforts and our outreach.
Therefore we have invited the following organizations to become recipients of our Social Action Collection:
July 2025 – City of Promise: Racial Justice
August 2025 – Birth Sister: Health Equity
September 2025 – PACEM: Homelessness
October 2025 – The Haven: Food Insecurity and Homelessness
November 2025 – Sin Barreras:Immigrant/Refugee Rights
December 2025 – Public Housing Association of Residents (PHAR): Affordable Housing
January 2026 – Impact: Advocacy/Enhance the Knowledge Base of the Congregation
February 2026 – UUCville Food Ministry: Food Insecurity
March 2026 – UUCVille Meal Packets: Food Insecurity/Family Support
April 2026 – Blue Ridge Abortion Fund: Reproductive Rights/Justice
May 2026 –
June 2026 –
This still leaves two months and two issues that we are not engaging with our time and money: the environment and criminal justice reform. We are asking for suggestions from the congregation about organizations which they know do good work in these areas and who we could ask if they would apply for our SAC. If you have suggestions, please email socialjustice@uucharlottesville.org.
The decision to change the way we choose the monthly SAC is a one-year experiment and will be re-evaluated next spring. The long-range Plan calls for the creation of committees and task forces who, along with our current Food Ministry, Ministry for the Earth, and Mosaic Squad, are likely to be at the core of creating the process each year for choosing the Social Action Collection.