Our Mission Partners at Concord Prison Outreach (CPO) held a community event on September 25th to remember where the organization has been and consider where it’s headed. Pastor Hannah was invited to offer an opening prayer rand share a part of WCUC’s history with the Concord Reformatory. Did you know that WCUC was started by Reformatory staff and their families?

Image: Pastor Hannah, Executive Director Mr. Sam Williams, Interim Senior Minister of First Parish Concord Rev. Seth Carrier-Ladd, and CPO Board President Ms. Liz Rust

We’ll get a chance to hear more about CPO at our next Service Sunday on October 23rd, when Executive Director Mr. Sam Williams will attend and we will participate in CPO’s new backpack project, preparing resources for people who are released from incarceration.

View CPO’s anniversary video below!

On Tuesday, August 16th, people gathered at the Habitat House on Main St. with the McCarthy and Champion families to celebrate its completion. A huge thanks to Constance Putnam for attending this dedication ceremony and offering a blessing on behalf of WCUC. Prior to this day, other volunteers from our congregation transported the planters from our May “service” day over to the house. We filled them with plenty of soil and a variety of plants – some straight from the Arthur family’s home garden! We look forward to maintaining these planters each season throughout the years ahead. If you’d like to be a part of this “garden team”, please email Joyce DeGreeff (joycedegreeff@gmail.com).

We tried a new experiment on May 15th, spending our Sunday morning in service together. Thanks to everyone who helped us:

• Build 4 cedar planters for the new West Concord Habitat House
• Assemble 15 kitchen starter kits and collect 20 bags and boxes of other kitchen supplies and linens for Household Goods (!!!)
• Garden at the Minuteman Arc Pine Street House, adding flowers to beds and window boxes, refilling the bird feeders, repainting a mailbox, and cleaning the porch furniture;
• Write over 30 notes of care and send advocacy letters to protect those who have been evicted
• Plant seeds for pollinators and paint kindness rocks
• Share our stories of service at WCUC and beyond!

In honor of Earth Day, the WCUC youth set out to learn, explore, and volunteer at Mass Audubon’s Habitat Education Center and Wildlife Sanctuary, located in Belmont, MA. While there we spent some time with other volunteers on various projects including removing invasive species in the woods and along the trails, and cleaning up a community garden. We also enjoyed a photo exhibit in the art gallery and a rejuvenating walk around a pond filled with wildlife sightings, birds singing, and a glorious sun-filled spring breeze. For anyone interested in nature, we highly recommend checking this place out! https://www.massaudubon.org/get-outdoors/wildlife-sanctuaries/habitat

Our yearly tradition of Youth Pie Baking is back in person this year! In two hours on Saturday night, we baked 15 apple pies, wrote notes to some beloved friends in the congregation, and still had time for pizza and games. A huge thanks to these thoughtful and generous young people and to all those who pitched in to make some deliveries this year. It takes a village.

Team WCUC had great day at the Minute Man March! It started with a team photo and blessing, followed by a crew of all ages doing the March together. Together, we raised $2025, gave out 50 flowers of appreciation to MMArc staff, and prepared 40 postcards to send to our senators in support of the Better Care, Better Jobs Act! Thank you to all of our marchers and supporters. God Bless Every Body!

After a long pandemic wait, we finally got to get our hands dirty helping at the neighborhood Habitat home we raised $30,000 to support in March 2020. Thanks to all the WCUC members and community friends who joined us in the work. It was a great day! So many thanks to the support of kind and skilled Habitat volunteer guides. Our work included removing siding, taking down a back porch, and taking out drywall.

To celebrate the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., WCUC was invited to join an at-home sign making project hosted by the Concord-Carlisle Human Rights Council in collaboration with COAR (Communities Organizing Against Racism). We offered the opportunity to participate to our children, our youth, and the wider congregation, and the pictures we received of the created signs are amazing! Take a look at how WCUC is honoring the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and illustrating our dreams for our communities.

Every year the WCUC youth look forward to one of their favorite traditions – baking pies during worship with Ann Schummers on the Sunday before Thanksgiving. Usually, they meet in the church kitchen to make the pies and while they’re baking, the youth write notes to members of our church community, and then the pies are distributed after the worship service. This year, however, we needed to make this happen in new ways. The youth met via zoom from our own kitchens to make the pies and the write notes “together”. We also relied on Congregational Care members for help to fulfill all of the orders and to make some of the deliveries. It was a great team effort and by all accounts, a fun way to make an old thing new. A huge thanks to everyone who participated!