Social Justice Mission, Structure & History
The First Unitarian Church of Rochester has been dubbed by a former City Historian "Rochester's alert conscience and hospitable roof," in recognition of its social concern and activities over 100+ years. As the congregation has grown recently, so have the number of programs and participants hoping to make a difference in our world, locally, state-wide, and even beyond our borders.
A Short History
Our church gained a reputation for social action during the ministry of William Channing Gannett, when in 1890 our building began serving as a settlement house for immigrant families with programs such as the Boys Evening Home and a similar one for girls. Other social service organizations eventually took over these roles, but in 1934, under Rev. David Rhys Williams, Gannett House became the three-year home of the Mothers' Consultation Center (later a branch of Planned Parenthood). Social action by a committee began in this church in 1961, when by a congregational resolution a Social Action Committee was formed. The three issues chosen to focus on by the Committee were: Substandard housing and segregation of housing and schools, Capital punishment, and Disarmament. (Some problems don't seem to go away.)
Our church continued to work on these and other issues, such as opposing the Vietnam War, when our minister, Richard Gilbert, refused to pay his telephone tax as an antiwar protest. During the '60s the name changed to Social Responsibility Committee, and in the '70s, with Rev. Gilbert's assistance, the church adopted the task force system to focus on a few issues out of the many concerns members had. Of the early task forces Reproductive Choice lasted the longest, begun in 1978 and ending in 1995, only to be revived again last year. The Hunger, Housing and Homelessness Task Force is another with a long history; the School Partnership Program, which began as a task force, has become a separate program with a paid Coordinator. Our church helps the children of City Schools #22 and the Children's School with volunteer classroom aides, donated school supplies and money for field trips.
Another of Rev. Gilbert's suggestions was the formation of a grant program. The first one, called the Social Investment Fund, to aid local nonpartisan, nonprofit voluntary associations, was included in the 1983-84 budget. We gave away $1000 that year, divided among four applicants. Since then The Social Investment Fund has been changed to a Special Fund to receive bequests, gifts and the profits from fund-raisers, and the interest from it is added to $5000 from the church budget. The total averages around $10,000 to be given away each year from the Social Justice Outreach Grants. In addition a gift now funds The Paul Wenger Fund for Peace Through International Understanding, and a third source of grant money is the Helen L. Morris Fund, awarded to groups providing nonviolent conflict resolution. Our Grants Panel receives applications and conducts interviews each winter, makes recommendations to the church Board and at the March Congregational meeting, after which recipients are notified.
A few years ago a guest speaker challenged our generosity by suggesting we give away the plate collection. We immediately began donating three of every four plate collections to outside groups, using criteria similar to those for receiving grants, and also to Unitarian Universalist organizations. Lately we have been giving away over $1000 each Sunday, while the church still receives nearly as much on one Sunday as it did before in four. A committee chooses the recipients.
There have been more changes since ministers Scott Tayler and Kaaren Anderson arrived in 2004. The various parts of Social Responsibility were brought under a Social Justice Ministry umbrella. We have hired a part-time Social Justice Coordinator, Tim Wilson, and changed the name of the coordinating body to Social Justice Council. Our church now houses homeless families several times a year under the Rochester Area Interfaith Hospitality Network (RAIHN) program and the Youth Group has raised money to send members to the area across the Mexican border to learn about family life there and the effects of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Our ministers inspired us to contribute $74,000 to the Greater Good project in 2006 - these are all in addition to task force activities, like Peace Vigils, feeding the homeless at St. Joseph's House of Hospitality, writing our legislators, etc. It's important to check the newsletter and the lobby bulletin board to see what great things we are doing.
Our Mission
In 2005 the church board led the congregation through a process of clarifying our mission and vision. This resulted in the Social Justice Ministry Mission Statement that inspires and guides our work:
We work together to create lay and ministerial acts of social justice that engage our hands, voices and money to put our liberal religious values into action locally, nationally and around the world.
You will also find us using other informal declarations, such as Gandhi's, "We must be the change we hope to see in the world," or a favorite of our church school kids: "Let us live simply so that others may simply live."
But maybe most of all, we strive to be most known by our actions, believing that the holy and our deepest selves are known best by serving and giving to needs greater than our own.
July 30 2008