* Through a wide range of projects . . . we discovered what fit with BUC. For example, we tried to promote letter writing on issues, but our strongest participants always favored hands on doing building or buying items needed by community groups rather than just providing grants. Lillian Dean
BUC has been one of the 52 area churches to host the South Oakland Shelter (SOS) since 1989. It takes hundreds of volunteers to host the shelter the second week in November of each year, but it is another example of service and fellowship.
* BUC established a partnership with the Whitmer Human-Resources Center Elementary School in Pontiac, a multi-ethnic school which included a large group of Hmong immigrant children. Urged by long-time member Walt Johnson, some 90 members volunteered to serve in numerous ways, including tutoring, providing food, becoming Big Brothers and Big Sisters, donating computers, and much more. In one effort, so many books were donated to Whitmer that the church had to send volunteers to catalog and place them in what had been nearly empty library shelves.
"BUC has been a breath of fresh air to me, because I get a sense of action not just rhetoric. We shelter and feed those that have lost their way and need a new start through the SOS program. We feed the disabled and disheartened when they need a hand through a community lunch program. Past generations of BUCers have patiently marched for civil rights with Martin Luther King when it was the hard thing to do. Today we continue to provide backpacks and other school supplies to children that need a fair start. We build new homes for the less privileged through Habitat. We help beautify our inner city through the Greening of Detroit program. Most importantly I think we send a message to the community that we are here and trying to make our community a better place." Matthew Chope
* Indicates passage was selected from Birmingham Unitarian Church, The First 50 Years.