UCC 50th Anniversary Synod -2

Monday June 25 Contd
Service Project: Today I participated in the service project which began by waiting for the bus. We traveled to a Hartford magnet school first. This series of schools were set up by Hartford as a way of integrating the schools. There is a Montessori school, a middle school and two high schools, one for science and the other for the arts. Students from the suburbs are bussed in for half a day to go to one of the two high schools. The schools are called "The Learning Corridor" www.learningcorridor.org. It is a partnership between the Hartford Public schools and Trinity College. I was built to be the prototype for other schools in the district.
Next we went to a neighborhood middle school where we assembled the bags of materials, some of which was supplied by some of you, for the teachers. Unfortunately unlike Atlanta where the local churches supplied the bulk of the materials, we did not have enough materials for all the bags, but the huge group of workers managed to pack 400 bags in one hour. I have photos of this which I will post soon. We had three bus loads of works many were high school youth. To keep the youth busy, they were asked to clean up he grounds of the school as well by picking up the trash. After lunch we returned to the arena.

Transition from Visitor to Delegate: That afternoon I chose a seat where I could run down and sign up for "Speak Outs" Speak Outs are a time where anyone can talk for 2 mins about anything. I happened to sit near the new director of education for Riverside Church Rev. Gerald Thomas. He is African American and came from he Vermont Conference. We struck up a conversation and I told him what I do and he said he would invite me to speak to his youth some time.
While I was sitting there watching the delegates, knitting a shawl and napping, John Deckenback the Central Atlantic Conference Minister spotted me and asked me to become a substitute delegate! It seems that Ruth Sykes ( Plainfield UCC) had an emergency so she had to go home. So now I am a delegate!
Resolutions passed: (for details see the resolutions on www.ucc.org)
Super fund Site
Green Churches
Support for Smithfield Ham workers in North Carolina
Cali Witte and Edith Guffey were reelected to serve on the Ministerium of the UCC.

Marion Wright Edleman
She is President of the Children's Defense Fund and she spoke in support of the children of the world and especially of these United states
Sound Bites:

• SCHIP is up for re authorizations this is the bill that provides health care for poor children. Contact your congressman and senators about increasing the amount of money for this so that all children will have health care. This needs to be done THIS WEEK. You can send a letter to your senators on line on The Children's Defense Fund site. http://www.childrensdefense.org/site/PageServer
• Cradle to Prison we are dooming many poor and minority children to enter the Justice system by the way we treat them in school and fail to teach them to read at an early age.
• She said about some teachers: "If you don't love children don't go into teaching!"
• Children watch and do what adults do so every adult should do a audit of their practices eg drugs, drinking, lying etc.

For more information see the website of the "Children's Defense Fund".

OK More later.