Social Action at First Parish

Social Action Coordinating Council

Each working group chair also has a voting spot on the council, and there are currently two other at-large members. Most of our social action work is done by the working groups, which are listed below. If you would like more information about social action at First Parish in Framingham, please contact the Parish Office, 508-872-3111.

Loving Hearts, Helping Hands:
Church-wide Gulf Coast recovery/anti-racism project

We are each invited to come together, to join hearts and hands, to create a reality in which racial and cultural diversity is not a social detriment but a community asset.

There are three phases:

Education: The preparation, including a four-part workshop based on the PBS series Race: the Power of an Illusion; this is a prerequisite to engaging in service work.

Encounter: The work parishioners performed in the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans, the most devastated and racially diverse area of the city, in February, 2007.

Working with coordinators from the UUA and the UU Service Committee, volunteers helped to rebuild lives and to restore hope for some of the poor and oppressed people in the area.

Engagement: The ongoing work we will do right here in Framingham. The Social Action Coordinating Council is developing opportunities for us to be of use locally, including, potentially, partnering with other churches and organizations.

The Social Action Coordinating Council endorsed this project as its annual focus for 2006-7. It is a service and growth opportunity for the full congregation. The Senior Youth Group is earnestly engaged in the project.

Gulf Coast Recovery/Anti-racism group chair - (vacant)

Green Sanctuary Committee

This committee was formed in 2005 to look at the environmental footprint of First Parish, envisioning a commitment to harmony with the Earth in all our endeavors. We are guided by the Green Sanctuary program provided by the Unitarian Universalist Ministry for Earth.

Download the committee's vision statement, in Word or OpenOffice format.

More Green Sanctuary information: public page, committee page.

Economic Globalization

Framingham Recycling Action Support

Homelessness

We collect the following items and donate them to area food pantries: non-perishable food such as peanut butter, cold cereal, hearty soups; canned hams, tuna, and chicken; juice and juice boxes; Parmalat (boxed milk); beans; macaroni and cheese that can be microwaved.

UU Urban Ministry

Prison Ministry Group

Volunteers are needed for the Prison Ministry Group.

Did you know that the United States now has the highest rate of incarceration of any western or “ first world” nation (including Russia)? Today there are more than 10,000 people in prisons right here in Massachusetts! More than 40% of those released from prison will return within three years, but those with a four year college degree have a total recidivism rate of less than 10%. Prior to 995 there were 350 prison college programs in the U.S., but by 1997 there were only seven, and our state has one of them.

A Prison Ministry Group within the Social Action Council at First Parish is looking to expand its mission. To date we have been working with Partakers, Inc., which helps individuals in local prisons to obtain a college education. You can find out more about the program at www.partakersinc.org.

We need more volunteers to join us and help expand this program and to find other ways we can get involved with prison reform efforts and prisoner education programs, such as ESL. If you would like to be involved, please contact the Parish Office.

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