A couple of summers ago, I was lucky enough to go to the Unitarian Universalist Association General Assembly (UUA GA, or just GA). I volunteered with a UUA organization (Faithify) to work at their booth on the convention floor and in return, they covered my conference registration! It was awesome! It was amazing that 10 hours of volunteer work saved WES a chunk of change and it allowed me to attend a bunch of workshops and build up my tool kit for WES. While I was at GA, I learned about some really cool segments and organizations within the UUA!

Right next door to the booth I was working in were the Chalice Lighters. The Chalice Lighters are a grant program within the UUA. And they’re broken down by regions. Here at WES, we are within the Central East Region. Chalice Lighters combines small donations from all over the region to fund grants to congregations to help with specific projects. 

The way Chalice Lighters runs their program is, just, genius! They encourage folks to sign up to be a Chalice Lighter. Then three times a year they ask for a small donation (suggested donation is just $20). After each of these calls for small donations, they then turn around and provide grants here within the region. I mean, come on, how cool is that?!? We pool our money together to make our whole area stronger! I just can’t get past what a great program this is.

Some of the programs in our area that the Chalice Lighters have funded includes staffing positions, building repairs, and innovative growth. In fact, WES received a Chalice Lighters grant a few years ago to help initially fund our Membership Coordinator position which brought us Maceo Thomas! There’s another grant request window coming up in August. Lyn is preparing to put in a grant proposal on WES’ behalf — an innovative growth grant that will be used toward or shift toward hybrid operations. 

In order for Chalice Lighters to be successful, we need to join up with them. I have signed up. Will you join me in being a Chalice Lighter and supporting congregations in our area (possibly including our own!) with projects? You can sign up here. 

Together,

Robyn Kravitz, WES Communications Coordinator