Needed: New Board Members
Have a passion for social and environmental justice, human rights, and democracy? Have you thought of joining the Board of Oregon Voices for Justice? Well, we are looking for new board members. Contact Board Chair: Sue Craig |
Our logo designer Jaimie Weeks-Seufert is featured third from the right in the front row. Thank you, Jaimie!
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Board of Directors
Chair - Sue Craig
Member of UU Eugene OR congregation
Having been a UU since I was 19, I have always been involved with the Justice part of our faith. Presently I am serving on the Board of Many Rivers Sierra Club group, as well as Shared Chairman of Interfaith Earthkeepers Eugene/Springfield. I am also working with the Forest Interest group of our state Sierra Club. There are several other groups of which I am a part, all dealing with the Environment. We have kept the Environmental group of OUUVfJ going for several years, and plan to continue that. I am looking forward to continuing our work on the Board of OUUVfJ of which I have been a member in the past. Inclusion is so important, and the joy of working with folks on the state level is very rewarding. 4/7/22 Kathleen McKinney
Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of McMinnville
Kathleen attended both the GA in Phoenix on immigrant rights and the recent one in New Orleans with a focus on white supremacy. She worked one winter in Phoenix for the Welcome to America project, which helps refugees. She is on the Unidos Bridging Community board of directors and teaches citizenship classes. She reads to Kindergarteners in the SMART program at Sue Buell elementary, which is 50% Hispanic. She has been involved in various immigrant rights marches and local activities and attended the Rural Organizing Project (ROP) annual training for the past several years as well as workshops by PCUN, the farmworker rights organization. Although immigrant rights is her main passion, she has been active in various social justice efforts. Barbara Dow
Member of Wyeast UU Fellowship, Portland, OR
I was born and grew up in Salem, Oregon. After attending U of O, I lived for several years in the northeast US, where I encountered Unitarian Universalism. When I moved back to Oregon, in 1984, my family and I began attending the downtown UU church and later joined it. I participated in services and in adult choir, taught religious education, worked on “pledge drives” and supported the child and youth choirs, as well as social justice projects. After my younger daughter left for college and I moved to northeast Portland, I enjoyed attending Wy’east as a good friend; same with the Salem UU congregation during a couple years in Salem while my mother needed extra support. Once I moved back to my Portland home, I joined Wy’east formally, about 2012. At various times I have been an RE teacher at Wy’east, General Assembly delegate, pledge drive chair, choir member, Village Support Network team member, Lilac Meadows food contributor, UU Mt. Hood cluster rep, social justice committee member, and that most important of jobs, Sunday coffee maker! Along with several members of different congregations, I was a founding member of Oregon UU Voices for Justice. At that time, there were about 14 states with statewide social action networks, and we felt Oregon should have one too. I look forward to serving on the Oregon Voices for Justice board, supporting existing ways of working in coalition with other UU congregations, congregations of other faiths, and other groups working to advance justice. Posted Sept. 10, 2022 John W. Raymonda Florence Unitarian Unitarian Universalist Fellowship
John is from Florence OR. and is the Social Justice elected leader for the fellowship. John's major social justice concern is with income inequality and the need to replace a minimum wage with a living wage. Jean Pierce
Member of First U Church of Portland
Jean has been a UU for close to 40 years. In 2023 she moved to Oregon from Illinois, where she had been a professor of educational psychology. In addition to chairing the social justice team at her church in Illinois for 15 years, she has served on the Board of a private girls’ secondary school in rural Kenya. Three-fourths of the girls are on scholarship because they are orphans or their families are impoverished. One hundred percent of the graduates qualify for higher education. For the past 10 years she served as Chair or Co-Chair of the Illinois League of Women Voters Issues and Advocacy Committee, which activates 3800 members to advocate for a variety of bills. She is particularly passionate about equitable funding for education. Currently, she is working with the Oregon League’s Action Committee. This summer, she was welcomed onto the national UUs for Social Justice Board of Trustees. Posted 9/2/23 |
David e. Delk
First Unitarian Church, Portland; Wy'East Unitarian Universalist Congregation, Portland
David has been a democracy activist/advocate for many years, having served as a chief petitioner for two statewide initiatives (46/47) to allow and then to place limits on campaign contributions in Oregon elections. Those measures were on the ballot in 2006. In 2011, he founded the Portland chapter of Move to Amend immediately following the US Supreme Court's Citizens United decision. Move to Amend advocates amending the US Constitution to overturn the court created doctrines that money = speech and that corporations are people. He lead the Portland chapter of the Alliance for Democracy and is also the national co-chair. Several years ago, he formed the Portland Public Banking Alliance to advocate for creation of a city of Portland Public Bank. At the First Unitarian Church, he was a member of the Economic Justice Action Group where he organized speaker events, documentary film screenings and gathered signatures on various local & state level initiatives. Max Merrill
Member of UU Fellowship of Central Oregon
Bend. OR I was born at Hermosa Beach CA and was raised on a farm in Southern California. Moved to John Day, OR when I was 11 and graduated from Grant Union H.S. in 1959. Went to Willamette University undergraduate and law school. After graduation in 1965 I moved to Colorado Springs, CO and practiced there in a small firm for 5 years before returning to Oregon and settled in Bend. I practiced law in my firm of 6 attorneys here for 46 years and retired in 1975. I have 4 children, all of whom were adopted. Three live in Oregon and one in Georgia. I am married to Grace Kennedy who worked in the WIC program (women, infants and children) for 30 years. We love to travel, hike and otherwise enjoy the out of doors. Our latest trip was to France this past summer where we both caught COVID and spent ten days of our vacation in our hotel room! Not our best trip. I am an avid reader with varied interests but love biography and history. I have been board chair here at UUFCO twice, have chaired the stewardship committee and serve on it now. I am the new chair of our very active social justice committee. Grace is on our board now as a member at large. We have been members here for over 20 years and are quite active. Grace is a photographer and is on our art committee which stages art shows in one of our larger rooms at UUFCO which change exhibits every few months. We would love to have any board members visit UUFCO. We have 325 members and are growing rapidly. It is an exciting time to be a UU in Bend. Posted 11/22/2022 Kevin Fairham-WheelerFirst Unitarian Church, Portland OR
I was born in Oregon City and spent my childhood in small towns in Oregon and Western Idaho. My UU journey started in 1989 when I was married to my wonderful wife, Victoria at the First Unitarian Church in Portland. I have had a long time interest in energy efficiency and electric vehicles. That interest prompted the purchase of my first electric vehicle in 2011 and advocacy for the same. I now focus my advocacy efforts into environmental justice and electrification. Posted 6/21/23 Lee Curran
Member of UU Fellowship of Klamath Falls
It takes a deep bench of people to do this work, forgive the baseball metaphor. That sums up how I see social justice learning and actions: in CommUNITY and building broad based coalitions. My husband and I are new to Klamath Falls, OR and the UU Fellowship of Klamath County. We lived in Honolulu, Hawai'i on Kanaka Maoli land raising our family for the past 30+ years. We retired to Klamath Falls, now residing on Klamath and Modoc lands, to be closer to family and for the much more affordable cost of living. I am deeply committed to social justice and mutual aid in the spirit of solidarity and co-liberation and identify as an anti-oppression pagan. My particular areas of passion are anti-racism work, disability justice, reform of the criminal legal system and educating and pushing back on the growing fascism in the U.S. Posted 8/9/23 |
