Compassion Offering

July Compassion Offering: Casa Alitas

Orchard Ridge UCC on July 2, 2023

Casa Alitas is a non-profit, immigrant welcome center near the border in Tucson, Arizona. The compassion offering for Casa Alitas from our congregation will help people at the border find a safer, more secure life.

Casa Alitas provides a warm welcome, food, clothing, and shelter for a few days for legal asylum seekers who have crossed the border. It also makes travel arrangements for people to reach the homes of their sponsors in the United States. Casa Alitas provides services to 500 to 1,000 guests every day.

ORUCC has a hands-on history with Casa Alitas, particularly through our annual clothing drive, such as the drive ongoing now. In addition, a number of us have had the opportunity to volunteer at Casa Alitas.

Funds from the compassion offering will provide direct services to immigrant families. Funds will

buy items for play bags for children,
pay for transportation to reunite families who have been separated at the border,
buy plane tickets for people to reach the homes of their sponsors in the United States, and
pay for the food, medical services, and shelter provided by Casa Alitas.

Thank you in advance for your contribution.

Video

You can make a donation by check, on the memo line, please write “compassion” and mail to ORUCC, 1501 Gilbert Road, Madison, WI 53711, or donate online from our website. The link is https://orucc.org/contribute/support/

February Compassion Offering: Worker Justice Wisconsin

Orchard Ridge UCC on February 1, 2023

Worker Justice Wisconsin (WJW) is a Madison-based nonprofit that builds collective worker power together with faith and labor allies. Our worker center educates and empowers employees who do not have a union. We help them file complaints with state agencies, incubate worker-owned cooperatives, and train workers to organize their coworkers. With a mostly bilingual staff, WJW pays special attention to the Spanish-speaking, immigrant working class. In 2022, WJW trained 140 workers, helped recover $121,560.11 in previously owed but unpaid wages, organized two job sites, and incubated three cooperatives. Of the 200+ workers who opened cases in 2022, over 90% were immigrants, and 89% were Latinx.

February’s Compassion Offering will be deposited in the WJW Solidarity Fund. The Fund encourages workers to engage in job site organizing by providing a basic financial safety net. If a worker is retaliated against or fired by their employer for engaging in legally protected organizing activity, or if a workforce decides to go on strike, they can receive up to 50% of their income from the fund (so long as funds last and up to two months). The Fund is crucial to bolstering workers’ bargaining power. It is not charity. It is a direct contribution to workers’ struggle to overcome structural inequality.

January Compassion Offering: Ethical Trade Company

Orchard Ridge UCC on January 1, 2023

Ethical Trade Co was founded in 2015 after our founders witnessed firsthand exploitation and human trafficking affecting people in southeast Asia. We met companies there that offered ethical employment opportunities to the people in their communities to prevent further exploitation. Feeling inspired, we set out to provide a marketplace for the products they were making so that they could offer ethical employment to even more people. Today our work financially empowers formerly exploited people in more than 25 countries.

As we sell items or receive donations into our general fund we are able to purchase more products which uphold the vision of empowering artisans by paying them a livable wage for their labor so that they are able to break free from exploitation and trafficking.

Any funds received through the Compassion Offering will be used to cover overhead costs to fulfill our mission to empower and support artisans around the world to break free from exploitation and extortion, as well as buying more products from our artisans to keep the circle of empowerment strong. Thank you for your generous support!

December Compassion Offering: UCC Christmas Fund

Orchard Ridge UCC on December 1, 2022

United Church of Christ retired clergy, servants of the church, have spent lifetimes baptizing and blessing, teaching and preaching, marrying and burying, and comforting and empowering God’s people. The UCC Christmas Fund for Veterans of the Cross gives us the opportunity to sustain and empower them. Gifts to the fund help retired clergy, church staff, and their families supplement pension benefits, pay bills, maintain health insurance, supplement health benefits, and meet emergency needs. In 2021, gifts to the Christmas Fund enabled pension supplementation for 231 retired clergy and lay employees, health benefit supplementation for 87 retired clergy and lay employees, emergency grants for 53 individuals and families, and Christmas “thank you” gift checks to 509 retired clergy and lay employees. Gifts to the Christmas fund in 2022 will make a real difference in the lives of retired clergy church staff, and their families, easing the anxiety of constant financial worries.

Here’s a link to the National UCC’s Christmas Fund promotional video, on You Tube:

November Compassion Offering: Neighborhood Schools

Orchard Ridge UCC on November 1, 2022

Our 3 neighborhood schools — Anana Elementary, Orchard Ridge Elementary, and Toki Middle School — are always in need of our support. And this is especially true in 2022, when budgets are tight and when so many families living in southwest Madison are stretched financially.

As you’ll see from this short video, each school is planning to make use of our compassion offering in different ways. These range from funding basic supplies, to providing students with winter clothing, to paying for yearbooks so no child is left without one, and to beautifying a stage so students and staff can take pride in their facility.

We invite you to please give generously and give what you can in support of our neighborhood schools. Thank you Orchard Ridge United Church of Christ for your timely and generous support!

Link to video (embedded if you click through to the post)

You can make a donation by check, on the memo line, please write “compassion” and mail to ORUCC, 1501 Gilbert Road, Madison, WI 53711, or donate online from our website.

October Compassion Offering: The Crossing Campus Ministry

Orchard Ridge UCC on October 1, 2022

The Crossing is a progressive Christian campus ministry on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus. The mission of The Crossing is to provide a Christian campus ministry where students can explore, question, understand, develop and affirm their relationship to God, each other and the world. This mission includes being a diverse and theologically open-minded Christian ministry that allows members of the university community the freedom to grasp anew the love and grace of God through an understanding of, and commitment to, living the gospel of Jesus Christ with a particular focus on his life and teachings. In short, The Crossing is a place where students can belong in community, explore their faith, and become their authentic selves.

At The Crossing when we say “ALL ARE WELCOME”, we mean it. The Crossing is a Reconciling in Christ, Open, Welcoming and Affirming ministry. We celebrate God’s diversity in sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, different abilities, faith tradition or lack of faith, national origin, racial, ethnic and economic background and any other difference.

During the 2021-2022 academic year The Crossing hosted around 125 students per week in the study/community spaces and over 75 students participated in worship and small group programs. In addition, The Crossing fed around 150 students per week through the Food Recovery Network and the Frozen Meal Program, not including the hundreds of students and community members that our longtime friends from Slow Food UW host in the building.

Events planned for this Fall include:

Welcome Back Pie Extravaganza & Concert
Open Mic Night
Weekly Dinner+Worship
Weekly Bible Study
Fellowship & support groups for Freshman and Graduate students
Queer Students of Faith exploring queer theology
Food Recovery Meals – Free hot meals are served on Tuesday evenings & Friday lunch-time
UW Frozen Meals – Frozen meals from the UW dining halls are delivered weekly; available when the building is open

Watch the video

Compassion Offering for July: Casa Alitas

Orchard Ridge UCC on July 1, 2022

Casa Alitas is a non-profit, immigrant welcome center in Tucson, Arizona. The Center provides a warm welcome, food, clothing, shelter for a few days, medical care, assistance in reuniting families who have been separated at the border, and then assistance for these families with transportation to sponsors who await them in the United States.

ORUCC has a hands-on history with Casa Alitas, even though it is miles away. You may remember that we sponsored a wonderfully successful clothing drive in 2021, and are planning another for this August.

Funds from the compassion offering will be used to provide direct services to immigrant families. For example, it will help reunite families who have been separated at the border, to buy plane tickets for people to reach the homes of their sponsors in the United States, and to pay for the food, medical supplies, and shelter provided by Casa Alitas.

Thank you in advance for your contribution.

VIDEO link

You can make a donation by check, on the memo line, please write “compassion” and mail to ORUCC, 1501 Gilbert Road, Madison, WI 53711, or donate online.

May Compassion Offering: Wisconsin UCC Outdoor Ministry Program

Orchard Ridge UCC on May 1, 2022

Our May compassion offering will go to Wisconsin’s outdoor ministry program (UCCI) which includes 3 camps: Moon Beach in the north woods, Daycholah on Green Lake, and Cedar Valley in southeast Wisconsin. It’s no surprise that the pandemic was hard on the camps. Even this year, in January, we had to cancel our all-church retreat at Daycholah. Despite the major challenges to the camps, the staff has managed to keep them alive with donations and creative options.

Our camps are sacred spaces to many of us at Orchard Ridge and around the state. They serve families, individuals, people with special needs, and people who benefit from scholarships, They are a great asset for building our spiritual lives and strengthening our lives together.

It ’s crucial we keep our camps strong and energized.

VIDEO

You can make a donation by check, on the memo line, please write “compassion” and mail to ORUCC, 1501 Gilbert Road, Madison, WI 53711, or donate online at orucc.org