Advocacy Ministry Team

Contact: Susan Morrisson

Advocacy, making our values known outside the walls of the Sanctuary, is how we increase our own awareness of peace and justice issues affecting the lives of other persons. It is throughf advocacy at all levels of government and community that we have the opportunity to increase peace and justice in the world.

How you can transform your faith into justice:

• Join the East Shore Advocacy alert email list

• Educate yourself and others about advocacy issues

• Contact your legislators with letters, emails, or phone calls for specific issues

Alternative Gift Faire

Contact: Karin Leisy
Every holiday season we organize a double opportunity to do good.  Instead of shopping for another “thing” for your loved ones who already have everything, give them a contribution to a local food bank, shelter, environmental agency or a braille book for a child in Nepal.  A strike against wasteful consumerism; a strike for social justice.  And you can get all your holiday shopping done in one place on one day.  It’s a win-win!

How you can transform your faith into justice:

• Suggest a vendor

• Shop for your gifts at the Faire

• Join the team

ANSWER Nepal Ministry Team

Contact: Margaret Hall

We link East Shore sponsors with Nepali children who have intellectual and leadership qualities but who lack the social clout and resources to meet their individual potential.  By focussing on education and success of individual children to become leaders, we support social change and improved life in Nepalese society.

How you can transform your faith into justice:

• Learn more about ANSWER Nepal by attending a Team meeting

• Sponsor a child

Children's Religious Education Social Action Sundays

Contact: Michelle Conklin, Religious Education Director (425) 747-3780
We provide children with a clear connection between their Unitarian Universalist faith and helping others.  We help children discover their ability to make the good choices that will build a better world.  Children and youth engage in activities including knitting and sewing hats and scarves for homeless children, creating supplies for the humane society, and feeding the hungry.\
How you can transform your faith into justice:

• Volunteer as a Religious Education Teacher

• Bring a social action idea to Michelle Conklin, the Religious Education Director

• Help lead a special project on one or two Sunday mornings

• Provide a connection between your church and your social service agency

Congregations for the Homeless

Contact: Den Kerlee
East Shore hosts up to 35 homeless men overnight during the month of October.  We provide dinner, breakfast, and sack lunches; as well as showers, toiletries, and clean towels.
How you can transform your faith into justice:

• Cook meals

• Shop for groceries

• Wash a load of towels

• Unload the van on October 1st

• Pack up the van on November 1st

Crossroads Feeding Program

Contact: Pam Monger, Andy Iwano and Pam Thomas 
We get together and cook meals in the East Shore Unitarian Church kitchen on the first Monday of every month.  Then we deliver and serve the food to the needy at Crossroads Community Center.
How you can transform your faith into justice:

• Cook with a group of enthusiastic Unitarian Universalists

• Deliver food

• Serve food to the hungry

Eastside Interfaith Social Concerns Council

Contact: JoAnne Way
This interfaith council is composed of representatives of many congregations and social service agencies that are concerned for the well being of the people of the Eastside.  The EISCC provides a forum to educate, advocate, initiate, coordinate, support, and through task forces and other means, work for the common good of the Eastside community to address human needs and improve the quality of life.  This council organizes many local efforts such as Congregations for the Homeless (see in this pamphlet).
How you can transform your faith into justice:

• Attend a meeting to discover how your talents and energy can make a difference

East Shore PEACE Team
Peacemaking Education and Action Through Collaborative Efforts

Co-Chairs: Lynn Roesch and Laurie Wick
Working within the church community and grounded in Unitarian Universalist principles, we bear responsibility to educate ourselves and the congregation and to promote peace through collaboration with other community organizations.  Out of our deep-felt passion and compassion, we can inspire each other to action.  We support East Shore’s vision to bring peace and justice to our lives and to our world.  Our goal is a world without war. We meet on the 1st Tuesday of each month from 7:00 - 8:30 pm. Please join us!

Calendar of Upcoming Events

East Shore Peace Pledge

Food Bank

Contact: Jeanne Lamont
Food collected in the shopping cart outside the sanctuary on Sunday mornings is given to local food banks.
How you can transform your faith into justice:

• When you go grocery shopping, buy some extra non-perishable food items and place them in the cart next time you’re at church

• Volunteer to deliver the collected food to the food bank of your choice

Forums and Other Adult Programs

Contacts: Dick Jacke (Forums) and Karen McManus (Adult Programs)
We aim to link our Unitarian Universalist faith to a teaching ministry for justice.  Almost every Sunday morning at 9:30 we hold an educational forum on an aspect of social justice.  Topics range from local environmental issues to international trade concerns, from reproductive rights to how to become an effective social justice advocate.  We often show videos, hold discussions, and invite local experts to speak.
During other times in the week we often offer adult programming that grabs the intersection between faith and justice.  Classes may include “Peace and Spirituality,” “Creation Stories and Environmental Sustainability,” or “Classism, Racism, and Democracy.”
How you can transform your faith into justice:

• Attend one of the many social justice educational opportunities

• Suggest an idea for an adult program or forum to Rev. Joan Montagnes

• Offer to lead an adult program or forum

Good Start Back to School

Contact: Nancy Worsham
Congregations for Kids is a group of congregations, service organizations, and businesses that work with the Bellevue School District to help students whose families cannot afford needed supplies.  In July, we collect backpacks and school supplies from church members.
How you can transform your faith into justice:

• Donate supplies in July

• Help sort supplies and pack backpacks

• Help with publicity for this project

The Green Team

Contact: Sonia Hoglander
The Green Team is East Shore's environmental justice ministry.  We consider the church facility and engage the congregational members, children, and wider community in the practice of clean green living.  We will employ some or all of the elements of the Unitarian Universalist Earth Ministry's Green Sanctuary Program. We are improving East Shore's energy and water usage.  We have supplied worm bins for kitchen waste. We submit articles on environmental topics to The East Shore Beacon, collaborate with the Grounds Committee, and make input for the Forum and the other religious education programs.  In the words of Albert Einstein "We cannot solve our problems with the same kind of thinking we used when we created them." To apply the Unitarian Universalist Association's 7th Principle, "respect for the interdependent web of all existence, of which we are a part," and to put your faith into action:

• Join the Social Justice Ministry's Green Team

• Bring your clean green living ideas to the Team

• Help the Team put your ideas into effective congregational practice

• Fill out the Green Team Survey!

Holiday Giving Tree

Contact: Janet Fleck
Every year we choose several social service agencies to be recipients of gifts from our Holiday Giving Tree.  The agencies supply us with requests for household goods, clothes, and toys for needy families.  Each request hangs as a tag on the Giving Tree.  Congregational members choose tags, purchase gifts, and place them unwrapped under the tree.
How you can transform your faith into justice:

• Next holiday season take one or several tags from the Giving Tree

• Be an “elf” and transport gifts from the Tree to the agencies

Marriage Equality Ministry Team

Contact: Rev. Joan Montagnes

Referendum 74 on the 2012 state ballot asks whether you approve or reject the law put in place last February affirming gay marriage.  At East Shore, we believe that all loving and committed couples should have the freedom to marry.  Our Ministry Team acts from a place of love to win the hearts and minds of voters as they discern their path this November. We educate, make phone calls, attend trainings, organize, and support each other in this ministry.  We invite people into the larger conversation about what marriage means and invite people to vote Approve on 74 this fall.

How you can transform your faith into justice:

• Have a conversation about what marriage means

• Join the team

• Participate in a phone bank – Mondays, 5:30 pm in Spring Hall

• Get a lawn sign or wear a button

Partner Church

The Partner Church Ministry is an active component of East Shore Unitarian Church’s Social Justice program. The Partner Church Ministry is affiliated with the national Unitarian Universalist Partner Church Council (http://www.uupcc.org), whose mission is to foster and support partner relationships between North American congregations, and congregations, schools, and agencies in all other countries where partnering is sought and welcomed. Click here to learn more about our partnerships in Transylvania, Romania, and the Khasi Hills, India. Steve Denison is the head of our ministry team.

Pea Patch

Contact: Ann Fletcher

East Shore is blessed with 3.5 acres of land.  A portion of the property has been converted into Pea Patch gardens.  Anyone is welcome to take on a Pea Patch.  The church provides the water.  You do the gardening.  Half the garden produce goes to social justice causes.  This may be in the form of fresh veggie donations to a food bank or funds generated at our Sunday Pea Patch Market table.

How you can transform your faith into justice:

• Take on a Pea Patch

• Buy veggies at the Pea Patch Table on Sunday mornings

• Bring your excess garden produce from home to sell for social justice

PICSI - People in Community Service Initiative Fund

Contact: Mary Gleason

Our mission: PICSI provides grants to effective social and environmental organizations in our community.  Our passion is funding: Basic human needs; health care/health improvement; violence prevention and intervention; environmental concerns.

The PICSI fund is organized and operated under the 501(c)(3) charter of East Shore Unitarian Church.  It operates on a non-sectarian and non-partisan basis.

For more information, or to apply for a PICSI grant, contact Rev. Joan Montagnes at (425) 747-3780 or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

PICSI Annual Report

List of Grants Awarded, 2008-2011

List of Grants Awarded, Fiscal Year 2011-2012

Grant Application

Second Sunday Ministry Team

Contact: Tom Castor
Every second Sunday of the month East Shore takes the entire morning offering and gives it away to a social justice cause outside our church walls. We select the monthly recipient agency and educate the congregation about the agency’s work through Sunday morning Forums. We try to match the offering with the theme of the service. The average Sunday morning collection is about $450, but on the second Sunday of the month the collection routinely jumps to $1,500—$2,000.
How you can transform your faith into justice:

• Join the Team in selecting agencies; send a suggestion to the chair

• Give generously every second Sunday

Second Sunday Offering Recipients/Partners, Links

Tent City Ministry Team

Contact: Bob Lewis
Tent City IV is a self-governing community of homeless people who live in an encampment on the East Side. Every three months they must move to a new location. The encampment is almost always on the property of a congregation. East Shore is unable to host Tent City IV because our grounds aren’t appropriate for their needs. We can, however, help the encampment in many other ways.
How you can transform your faith into justice:

• Help cook and serve hot meals

• Offer to make sack lunches

• Get to know a person without a home; have them tell you about how to run a peaceful self-governing community.

Unitarian Universalist Service Committee

Contact: Lynn Roesch
The UUSC promotes and protects human rights in the United States and internationally.  East Shore has an active group that supports UUSC activity in our church.  They hold educational workshops and find speakers for Sunday services.  In the autumn the UUSC distributes “Guest at Your Table” boxes – small cardboard boxes for mealtime donations of money – reminders that due to poverty, others may not be able to eat.  The boxes are collected after Thanksgiving.
How you can transform your faith into justice:

• Attend our committee meetings

• Come up with wonderful ways to educate the people of our congregation and the public on issues of human rights

• Attend our UUSC sponsored events

• Fill up a “Guest at Your Table” box every fall

• Join the national UUSC

• Read the UUSC newsletter

Women Helping Women (a subgroup of Women's Perspective)

Co-Leads: Laurie Wick and Susan Morrisson

WHW is very active promoting organizations and projects empowering girls and women, both locally and globally.  Our main local project is supporting the Sophia Way homeless women’s shelter through providing two monthly meals and in a variety of other ways.  Our two main global projects are supporting Barakat, a group providing girls/women education in Afghanistan/Pakistan and also supporting OIKOcredit, a global microfinance group.

YWCA Family Village Apartment

Contact: Ann Reynolds
Our congregation takes care of one apartment in the YWCA Family Village for transitional housing.  Any family leaving the apartment is welcome to whatever food or furnishings are in the apartment at the time of their departure.  We clean, paint, and restock the apartment whenever a family leaves.
How you can transform your faith into justice:

• Be ready to jump at the chance to paint, clean, shop, and make an apartment into a home for a family in transition

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