We offer friends and members the chance to get involved in our community and to put their spiritual beliefs in action. To this end, we encourage congregants to find their passion and to act on it! Below is a listing of our many congregational social justice projects. For more information on each project, please click on the tab!

In 2004, the congregation was named as a Unitarian Universalist Service Committee's Vision of Justice Banner Society, which honors congregations in which 50-90 percent of the membership are UUSC members. The UUSC support social justice projects around the U.S. and the world.

Are you looking for a way to make a difference in our community that helps the earth? Well, you don't need to look any farther than the Community Composting Project. This project was started to reduce waste going into the landfill that could otherwise be composted and then beneficially returned to gardens and yards. Currently, a number of restaurants and local food producers are part of this group. As a volunteer, you would be committing to picking up compost buckets once a week from a particular participating restaurant, taking the buckets to the composting site (right now that is our fellowship), emptying the buckets onto the compost pile, cleaning the buckets out, and then returning the buckets to the restaurant.

Because of the success of this project, new community partners have signed on and are looking at developing a five year plan which will bring curbside composting to all of Athens. Partnering in this effort are: Athens-Hocking Solid Waste District, the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Athens, Athens City Council, Ohio University's Recycling Department, ReUse Industries, and Community Foods Initiative

If you are interested in volunteering for this very worthwhile endeavor, please contact Diana Stafford.

Unitarian Universalist Service Committee
Our congregation supports the UUSC, our UU human rights organization. As a congregation, we specify a line-item in our budget based on the number of members. Right now we give $2 per member to the organization. We also support the UUSC through the following activities:

Guest At Your Table (UUSC)
This is an annual campaign that takes place from Thanksgiving to the New Year which teaches people of all ages about human needs, human rights and sharing. We provide small boxes to be placed on the table, to invite into our homes people from around the world who need our support in their struggle for basic human rights. As you have your meal, you put coins or money in the box and accumulate it over four or five weeks. The money saved then goes to the UUSC.

For more information or to get a Guest At Your Table box, contact Lois Whealey.

Coffee & Chocolate for Social Justice
We sell organic, free-trade coffee and chocolate items with all of the profits being funneled back to the UUSC. Items can be purchased on Sunday morning. So not only are you supporting UUSC by buying these items at the fellowship, you are also helping farmers in third world countries by giving them a fair price for their produce, AND encouraging environmental sustainability because the coffee is shade-grown and organic.

United Campus Ministry (UCM)
In the spring of 2005, our congregation voted to become a supporting congregation of UCM. Not only does this mean that we contribute financially to UCMs mission, but that we take an active role in cooperating and working with UCM projects.

Since 2005, friends and members of the UUFA have created and served a number of UCM Thursday night supper. This endeavor consists of our "chef" volunteers bringing in already prepared dishes for the supper. Then our volunteers came and set up the dinner line, served the dinner and finished with the clean-up.

Keep watching our newsletter, the Greensheet, or the fellowship's e-mail list for how you can help this worthwhile endeavor, as we plan on doing this a number of times throughout the year.