Month: February 2023

Setting up a recurring pledge payment

February 20, 2023 /

Did you know you can set up recurring pledge payments? Many of our members find recurring payments convenient and make fulfilling their pledge easier.

Here’s how to set up your recurring pledge payment today:

1. Visit https://foothillsuu.churchcenter.com/giving/to/pledge-commitment.

2. Input the amount of your recurring pledge payment. You will select the payment schedule – weekly, every other week, monthly, or twice monthly – in Step 3. If you would like to check your pledge balance before setting up a recurring payment schedule, you can find instructions for checking your pledge balance here.

2. Select “Regularly” under the “Frequency” drop-down.

3. Select your automatic payment schedule from the options that appear.

4. Select your payment method. We pay thousands of dollars in fees every year for credit card processing. There are two ways you can help us minimize the expense of credit card processing. First, you can select your bank account as your payment method. If you don’t already have your bank account linked, click “Add bank account” then find instructions on how to link your bank account here (go to step 5). Second, you can cover the processing fee for your recurring card payment. When you select a credit card as your payment method, a small box will appear that says, “Add $X to cover the processing fee.” By checking that box, you will cover the processing fee for your payments by card.

5. Click the “Start giving…” button!

If you have any questions about your pledge or setting up payments, please contact Katie Watkins at katie@foothillsuu.org.

The Building Bulletin: February 2023

February 10, 2023 /

Please join us tomorrow, Monday, February 13, from 4:00 to 5:30 in the Social Hall to celebrate the building’s progress and receive a tour of our new sanctuary. You’ll also have the opportunity to sign a piece of drywall that will be installed in our new sanctuary. Peter Ewers and Ann Ormsby from our architectural firm will be there, along with members of our project team from Pinkard Construction and the Building Expansion Team. This is a great chance to get a feel for the new space and have all your questions answered. Even if you don’t want to take a tour, there will be things to see and people to talk to.

If you opt for a tour, Pinkard will provide hard hats, glasses, and safety vests. Dress for the weather, we have exterior walls and a roof, but it still can be chilly. No open-toed shoes, sensible heels, and be aware that you will probably have to walk on dirt or mud. Children are welcome at the event, but no one under 16 is permitted on the construction site. The contractor can only accommodate 20 people at a time, so we will try to squeeze in as many tours as we can to ensure that everyone who wants to can participate.

In other building news, the construction site is getting very busy, with more trades coming in to do their tasks. We have roofers, plumbers, electricians, and carpenters all at work. Our contractor always makes safety the top priority, which is even more essential during this busy phase.

The work is very visible right now. If you take the opportunity to drive down Drake, there is more and more to see every day. 

We hope to see many of you at our event on Monday. 

In partnership and with excitement,

The Building Expansion Team
Chris Bettlach, Jerry Hanley, Peg MacMorris, and Margaret Cottam

Migrant Response Update

February 9, 2023 /

As you probably know, since the week of Christmas, our congregation has been a part of the effort to support the 60 (mostly) Venezuelans who arrived in Fort Collins. What you may not know is what led to this action, what has happened since, or what comes next. Here is an update on all three:

Backstory: What led to the need in the first place 

Throughout 2022, immigrant-connected organizations at the border were conversing with ally organizations in Denver to let them know that they anticipated sending people to Denver as their systems were overtaxed. This prediction came true in early December when Denver started to see busloads of immigrants arriving, mainly from Venezuela but also from other South and Central American countries, especially Nicaragua and Guatemala. By mid-December, Denver had counted over 3,000 newcomers arriving in the prior few weeks, taxing their systems. 

Denver reached out to other Colorado Counties, and Larimer was the rare County that responded with willingness and accepted 60 migrants for temporary shelter and support. Foothills was a part of the non-profit and faith-based communities that responded to the County’s outreach and who would provide direct services for the newcomers.

The County coordinated emergency housing through hosts at Peak Community Church, Antioch Church, and a Red Cross shelter established at Embassy Suites. Other organizations – besides Foothills – who responded to the call from the County include Alianza NORCO, ISAAC of Northern Colorado, Fuerza Latina, and Kimberly Salico-Diehl from the American Baptist Church, as well as other faith leaders who connected as individuals.  

Our Response 

Upon their arrival, Foothills participated in numerous informational calls, seeking willing volunteers and agencies who would step up to their needs. The County’s services were short-term, and the shelters would be shut down within the next week. No more County services would be provided. As a result, the clock was ticking to find mid-term shelter, as well as connections, and planning for longer-term stability and safety for the newcomers. 

We put out a call for volunteers, and over 60 people responded. Thank you.  

Ultimately, Foothills became responsible for three main areas of the response: Travel, Housing, and Financial Support.

Travel
First, with the volunteer leadership of Cheryl Hazlitt, Jessica Davis, and Sara Tarr, we coordinated travel needs, which included purchasing bus tickets across the country and identifying resources in destination cities. Our volunteers also transported people to the bus station, to their Christmas meals, and helped purchase groceries. Our volunteers also drove people to Denver and local stores. Our volunteers continue to provide occasional transportation assistance to jobs and appointments.

Housing (and Supplies)
Additionally, with the volunteer leadership of Foothills members, Ticie and Tom Rhodes, we coordinated with many of you to identify short-term housing placements for people leaving the emergency shelters who still needed a longer-term plan. Many of you offered your homes and your support with incredible generosity. Many of you provided furniture, supplies, and clothing, and many of you helped get those items to the people who needed them. Ticie, Tom, and I have continued to work with Fuerza Latina and Alianza to identify longer-term housing for all who decided to stay.  

Through this work, our Sanctuary Everywhere program has established a new eight-person (volunteer) Village to support one of the recently arriving families through their next few months of resettlement. We are also working with Foothills member Anne Aspen to form another support village around another household. This work will be ongoing, just as it has been with immigrant families since Sanctuary Everywhere began in 2017. 

We extend a huge thank you to Ticie and Tom for their many hours of care and leadership and to the many of you who stepped up with housing, hosting, and other emergency needs.

Ticie and Tom Rhodes

Financial Support
In addition to these volunteer roles, I was blown away by the financial generosity of our community. In a few weeks, we raised over $38,000 to support this work. 

These donations came from 175 donors, about 115 Foothills donors, and about 60 individuals and organizations from outside of our church. As a result, we have been able to provide gift cards for clothing and supplies for every person in this group. Thank you to Shanna Henk and Annmarie Fore for their help in coordinating gift cards.

Even more incredibly, we have provided more than $20,000 to fund down payments and the first and last month’s rent for every person who decided to stay in the area. This means your financial support secured housing for 36 adults and four children! 

The financial generosity exceeded the most immediate needs, so we have been able to make a $6,000 donation to ISAAC’s emergency fund, which was running low. ISAAC’s emergency fund will provide grants for emergency needs of all kinds, both for recent and future waves of arrivals.  

What’s Next 

While we might imagine that a Democratic president would significantly shift the landscape for immigrants, asylum cases remain extremely difficult to win, and other legal pathways remain mostly inaccessible for these individuals and others in similar circumstances. The administration has recently indicated that they would be returning to the practice of immigration sweeps and more aggressively pursuing deportation, similar to what we saw under the former administration. 

And yet the violence, poverty, and danger of their home countries will continue to motivate people to come to the United States seeking employment, safety, and reunification with loved ones who have previously immigrated here. Indeed, while this was a sudden major influx, this was not new – our Sanctuary Everywhere program has convened seven different villages to companion individuals and families since 2017. Two individuals in our congregation have been regularly accompanying more than 40 Nicaraguans over the last two years.

We anticipate that this steady regular arrival of immigrants will continue in Northern Colorado, and we also anticipate the likelihood of additional influxes of busloads of people over the coming year and beyond.  

How we receive and embrace these individuals may be fraught from a political lens, but our faith and our congregational commitments make clear that we are called to see each of them as our neighbor and kin and to respond with this understanding in mind. While the County has said that they will not say yes again without the Governor declaring a state of emergency (and as a result releasing additional funds), we believe we have a moral obligation to receive immigrants seeking shelter and safety. We will not be among those voices who would look at their trauma and turn them away or have them bussed to yet another location.  

I have begun weekly conversations with the leadership of Fuerza Latina, ISAAC, and La Cocina, as well as other faith leaders, about the bigger picture and what comes next. We at Foothills need to work with our partners to ask ourselves what our moral obligation means in practice, what effective support looks like, and how to facilitate settlement support in ways that support community connections and cultural integrity. We must consider what sustainability will require for this work and how to fulfill our commitments outside of the emergency. And we need to center the voices of and follow the lead of immigrants themselves. These are the conversations I have just begun, and in the coming months, I will invite all of you to join in and discern what comes next together. 

What is clear to me, however, is that once again, you showed that we can be the kind of people we talk about when we talk about our values. We can be the people, in the words of Howard Thurman, who “find the lost, heal the broken, feed the hungry.” Seeing the ease with which so many responded with generosity, compassion, and love has been inspiring and faith-renewing. Thank you.  

With that said, sustaining this kind of work takes tremendous resources and commitment. The support we were able to provide to the arrivals was not only made possible through donations to the migrant support fund and the gifts of your time. It was also made possible because of ongoing financial support for the church’s operations.

Behind the scenes, our staff team works tirelessly alongside members to manage logistics, get the word out about needs, and ensure we coordinate effectively with appropriate partner organizations. We rely on our wonderful database to reach out to our community and flexibly receive and distribute donations with accountability and transparency. These systems and structures are only possible with ongoing church staff and operations funding.

Our faith commitments call on us not just to sustain our capacity to respond but to grow our systems, structures, and care whenever and however the need arises – to have the resources and staff to jump in when we receive the call. And as many of you know, right now, our capacity is limited as we are still attempting to fully fund our 2023 budget.

Which is why I ask – if you ended the year with a little more than you expected – would you please consider supporting our operations with a donation? Your support is what makes all of the above possible. It allows us to respond, coordinate, and be not just a voice but a force for justice and love in Northern Colorado. You can donate at foothillsuu.org/donate. Everything you give is tax-deductible and will go directly to supporting Foothills Unitarian.

Thank you so much for your support. To me, this is what we mean when we talk about God. This force of love working through us and among us, responding with generosity, compassion, and a relentless commitment to our common humanity. I am so grateful. 

With love,

Rev. Gretchen

Gender Fluent Series Introduction

February 2, 2023 /

“Did you know gender when you were born?”

This question, posed by queer theorist Kathryn Bond Stockton, Dean of the School for Cultural and Social Transformation at the University of Utah (and our guest speaker on Sunday, February 12th), brings us to the heart of our series.

Think about it…

How do you know your gender?

Is it something you feel, think, experience… or do you just know on a level that’s hard to explain?

Do you know it because others treat you a certain way, sort you into a certain box, or assign you a certain word

Maybe you are confused by gender. (I know I am.)

What words have been used to describe your gender now and in the past?

Boy, girl, man, woman, tomboy, butch, pansy, feminine, masculine, queer, trans, nonbinary.

Do these words feel affirming, like a warm cozy blanket wrapping itself around your skin, or do they scratch and itch, ill-shaped, like a restrictive burlap sac?

Gender is something we do, but it’s also done to us.

Confused? That’s okay.

Gender is complicated for all of us! Even those of us who play it straight.

Gender is strange and also sacred. 

In this series, we are inviting you to become Gender Fluent: 

  1. Curious about gender – yours and other people’s – without judgment or assumption
     
  2. Conversant learning new vocabulary and ways of thinking and talking about gender. No longer letting fear of missteps stop important conversations.
     
  3. Courageous to speak up and fight back against ideas, laws, and policies that tightly define gender or dehumanize trans and nonbinary people. Courageous to affirm your gender, whatever it is, and to embrace others.

As Unitarian Universalists, we proclaim that all genders are sacred and all people are worthy of love and belonging. But living that commitment requires us to learn, unlearn, and deepen our practice of true radical inclusiveness. 

This series is for you if:

  • You feel like everything is changing when it comes to gender, and you are not quite sure what’s going on. 
  • You feel comfortable in your gender.
  • You are questioning your gender.
  • You don’t feel comfortable in your assigned gender.
  • You want to be a better ally to transgender and nonbinary people.
  • You don’t really understand what the word gender even means. 

This series comes at a time when gender has become a battleground. 

Right-wing politicians and religious conservatives have mounted a campaign of censorship and propaganda around gender. They are taking aim at school curriculums that mention the existence of LGBTQ people. They are passing law after law attempting to ban trans kids from accessing health care and bathrooms. They are actively banning books from libraries simply because they mention sex. They are even branding drag performances as a form of child abuse.

Their goals are simple: control. 
 
Controlling the definitions of gender. 

Controlling other people’s bodies who don’t conform to a narrow understanding of ‘acceptable.’ 

Controlling access to the public square to anyone who deviates from their norms.
 
But we don’t think gender is a battleground. We think of it more like a playground.
 
Playful exploration and games of make-believe allow us to try new ways of being. Gender is a place of freedom, self-definition, and, ultimately, community. 
 
We can’t wait to see you for week one of GenderFluent this Sunday, February 5! We gather at 8:30 AM (in person) and 10:30 AM (in person and online).
 
-Rev Sean
 
P.S. We know this series might stretch for some in our community more than others, if that describes you, I want you to know that we aren’t going to leave you behind. We are all in this exploration together. You can ask anonymous questions at foothillsuu.org/genderquestions. We’ll answer your gender questions every Sunday and on The Foothills Deeper Pod.

Learn more about GenderFluent

© 2025 Dispatches from the journey of Foothills Unitarian

Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑