As I write this Haiti is devastated and it is too soon to know the real toll to that country and its people. By the time you read this some days will have passed. More may be known. The beginning of help and assistance will have been offered.

Our thoughts and our prayers are with Haiti. Help will be needed for a long time. On January 24th our RE children grades K-6 were able to make hygiene kits for Church World Service to use, and they also held a bake sale to raise money for the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee. If you would like to donate to the UUSC go to uusc.org.

Life does continue on, thankfully. And there is good news to be shared here at May.

By now we have started our Winter term in RE. Our 4, 5, 6 grade group which started out the year in two sections has combined into one section. We did not have the attendance that we thought we might and so we will combine them. The guides have been doing a wonderful job in this transition.

Our Junior High group, Our Whole Lives, will have an overnight on Feb 6 and 7. That happens to be the same weekend that the Teenz have a con. The con’s theme is on Leadership Development and it will be in Binghamton.

We continue to average about 50 or so children and youth in the RE program. Our three strongest areas as far as numbers are: the Teenz, the Junior High group, and the Nursery. On Jan 10 we actually had 11 children three or under in the nursery! Our team of guides, Lillian Ackerman, Jerry Ackerman, Stephanie Cross, Therese Hogle, Brian Leonard and Joan Weiser, have been doing a great job leading this curriculum, which is a year-long focus on human sexuality. The youth who are involved are committed and engaged; they contribute quite a bit. And the parents and families who bring them there every week are also committed!

RE often needs extra volunteers besides guiding. Right now we have the following needs:

• Washing the RE dishes and cups, after Sunday morning programming
• Helping out with a Special Programming Sunday
• Subbing in RE when necessary
• Families or individuals who would take a week of care for our butterfly garden during summer
• Having your child sign up to carry the chalice downstairs.

If you are new to May or you have any questions about RE please feel free to call me or email me at This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it

~ Jennifer Hamlin-Navias