They say December is a season for giving and gratitude. Here at OCUUC, supporting others is a year-round commitment. In November, we raised $1,700 through our plate share for Second Harvest—an amount notably larger than usual, benefiting a deserving organization at a time when the demand for their services is rising. Earlier in the fall, we took part in Stand with Costa Mesa Families to gather food for families affected by ICE.
We followed up in December by once again participating in the Share Our Selves Adopt-A-Family program. I am extremely proud of our congregation for coming together with gifts and donations to support a family in need. Thanks to your generosity, we fulfilled the wish list of our adopted family of eleven and then some. We did well enough that we were able to adopt a second family. It was a family of three, whose dad had recently been detained by ICE.
We experienced the first rental of our sanctuary by a family not in our congregation, and additionally, we hosted two outside groups at our facilities. The Lavender Democrats had their holiday dinner in Daniels Hall, and Housing is a Human Right OC (HHROC) held their The Longest Night service in our sanctuary to honor the more than 300 unhoused persons of OC who had died in the past year. It was an emotional and poignant service, in which several members of our congregation participated. Both groups expressed their thanks to our team for making their events successful.
Jamie Pendarvis
VP of Finance, OCUUC's Board of Trustees