With Thanksgiving just past and the holiday season approaching, this marks the beginning of the season of thankfulness and gratitude. And so we want to take this opportunity to say Thank You.

It has been a rough couple of years with the pandemic. In this time, congregations have figured out how to do online church, how to meet safely in person, changing from online to in person and back as case counts rise and fall. Through it all volunteers and staff have kept congregations going, kept people connected and kept our chalices burning. We thank you for your efforts, your inventiveness, your willingness to think "outside the box" and to take a risk. We've all learned from those experiments and we are better for it. And we've learned that we are better when we work together.

Thank you to the congregations who pay their fair share to the Annual Program Fund and those who stretch to pay as much as they can. Your funds make our work possible and allow us to provide resources, trainings and support to all our congregations in the region and the UUA.

Thank you to all our Chalice Lighters who make a commitment to help those beyond their own congregation with growth and outreach projects, or to recover from devastating situations. Your generosity has an impact on the lives of our congregations and members that you cannot imagine.

Finally, we could not do it without our volunteers. Those who volunteer in our congregations to make them representatives of our values in your communities. The committee chairs and members, those who plan events, congregational volunteers who help us with on the ground planning and logistics for events and more. We would not be able to do anything without our volunteers. To you we say Thank You over and over again.

So to all of you who make these many things possible, we say Thank You.

Your Regional Staff
Rev. Megan Foley, Rev. Renee Ruchotzke, Patricia Infante, Beth Casebolt, Rev. Evin Carvill-Ziemer, Rev. Sana Saeed, and Rev. Sunshine Wolfe.

If you are feeling grateful and want to share your bounty with others, Giving Tuesday, November 29th, is a wonderful opportunity. Giving Tuesday kicks off the holiday season, when charities, families, businesses, community centers, and students around the world come together in common purpose: to celebrate their cause and to give. You might consider donations to the UUA. Faithify, our UU Crowdfunding platform has a number of worthy projects that you may also consider. Our Chalice Lighter Program is currently accepting donations for the Winter Call. The UU Service Committee and your own congregation are all worthy recipients.