Our Outreach Committee organizes and coordinates the active involvement of the Congregation and its members in local, district, national and international projects for peace, compassion and social justice.
United First Parish Church was a founding member in 1996 of the Greater Boston Interfaith Organization (GBIO). What motivated this founding group to begin building GBIO was a common desire to transcend the historic divisions in Boston that existed between neighborhoods, particularly around race and class issues, and to build a new organization which could help build relationships across these divides and provide a new vehicle for different constituencies to act together on common interests in ways which would be powerful and effective. During this time our minister, Rev. Sheldon Bennett and many members of our congregation have been active working on projects to improve affordable housing, and nursing home and health care reform.
Our congregation has been a UUA designated Welcoming Congregation since 2006. We are proud to offer a welcoming and safe home for our gay, bisexual, lesbian and transgender community and families.
We participate in and support The Standing on the Side of Love campaign a public advocacy campaign that seeks to harness love’s power to stop oppression. It is sponsored by the Unitarian Universalist Association and all are welcomed to join. Through community activism, social networking, and media outreach, people across the nation are equipped to counter fear and make love real in the world. The message, “standing on the side of love,” emerged as a rallying point for people of faith in Massachusetts during their early efforts for fully inclusive marriage, and later during the fight against Proposition 8 in California. The Standing on the Side of Love Campaign was inspired by the 2008 shooting at Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church, which was targeted because they are welcoming to LGBT people and have a liberal stance on many issues. The Knoxville Community responded with an outpouring of love that inspired the leadership at the Unitarian Universalist Association to launch a campaign that would harness love’s power to challenging exclusion, oppression and violence based on sexual orientation, gender identity, immigration status, race, religion, or any other identity.
UFPC supports our local community by offering an ESL (English as a Second Language) program. We host a Prison Book Program and a Faith Covenant Hot Meals Program for our local population in need.
Our members collect eyeglasses, toys, and ink cartridges on behalf of the Lions Club, Team Sight and Bite (eye & dental clinics in El Salvador), and our ESL program. We host annual food drives for the Interfaith Social ServicesFood Pantry.
The Outreach Committee works with the teachers and children of the Church School as they develop their “faith in action.” During the church year the youth and children host a number of intergeneration activities supporting social justice organizations of their choice.
Our congregation contributes generously to the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee's (UUSC) Guest at Your Table campaign, an annual fundraiser to support national and world social justice. Our congregation has earned the designation as a “Creating Justice Community”.
