Service Fellowship Learning Worship
In 2003 BUC voted to donate 100 per cent of the Sunday morning plate collection to causes nominated worthy by our members and serving our local community. In 2006 a total of $27,533 was sent to area social support organizations. See the schedule of all donations.
* 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
* Lillian Dean had heard about SOS [South Oakland Shelter], and in 1989 she led a campaign to make BUC one of the week-long hosts to the homeless . . . Church members not only bought in, they jumped in enthusiastically, volunteering for the many tasks necessary, from washing sheets to taking the midnight shift at church.
* 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.
* Doug schedules a training workshop each year for prospective pastoral care associates . . . The model is focused on caring -- not curing. We are to listen, offer support, not solve problems. While we occasionally do offer services like a ride or a hot meal, we are really there to be 'someone to give a damn' about the individual. Dorothy Prier
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.