Get Activated

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On Sunday, I was proud to join Side With Love for the launch of the Action Center. Today, I am excited to share with you why I have found my time as a volunteer deeply meaningful and ask you to join me at our volunteer Squad Activation Huddle on Sunday, September 26 at 1pm PT • 2pm MT • 3pm CT • 4pm ET.  

When I retired from 41 years of teaching, I’d planned to take some time to just chill. When I retired in June 2020, I looked at the world around me and knew: this is not the time to chill, this is the time time to act. At General Assembly, I stretched myself and went to the UU The Vote phone bank to Texas. I was initially uncomfortable, yet as I made more calls, I felt the power and importance of the work we were doing there. 

Then I started sending postcards to encourage people in Florida to request absentee ballots. And then I picked up some extra postcards for my friends so they could join me. After the first two times I thought, I could organize my own postcard pick up, and with the support of more experienced folks, I ran six postcard pickups that summer. When UU The Vote reached out asking who can help us run phone banks,I thought, I could do that.

And I have been doing that, and more for the past year — now I invite you to join me

I realized that I needed not just to help out, I needed to help in:  I needed to help other people come in and join us in this important work. I needed to be part of the group that made helping out easier for others. 

And that’s why I joined our Volunteer Squads — the volunteer backbone of our Side with Love Action Center. Squad volunteers bring our campaigns to life with bite-sized commitments  that make it possible for Unitarian Universalists and friends to take action and build community for a just, equitable, and multiracial democracy.

Are you ready to get Activated? 

Join our

Side with Love Squad Activation Huddle

Sunday, September 26

 1 PT • 2 MT • 3 CT • 4 ET

RSVP

Can’t come, or can’t wait to get started? Fill out our interest form

Our Side with Love Squads allow people to find different ways to support the work we do: you can help folks learn how to phone bank, manage the data, run the Zoom, do the spiritual grounding. 

As a team, we help each other learn the different roles and figure out how to do them effectively. I first did support, helping folks one-on-one who were struggling to get going in phonebanking.. After one event, the coordinator said: We need someone else to coordinate the next phonebank. Once again, stepping outside my comfort zone, I said, “I could do that.” 

Our Squad Activation Huddle is for YOU if you’re ready to say “I could do that.”  We’ll help you find the right squad for you, orient and train you, and help you find the right size role for the time and energy you have available.

The importance of bringing others along in our work is central to my beliefs as a Buddhist UU. While some Buddhists are working towards their own liberation, many of us have committed to being boddhisatvas. A bodhisattva vows to work not just for their own liberation but for the liberation of all beings.The bodhisattva does not just help out, they help in!

If your faith and your understanding of what the world needs us to do right now calls you to be a person who helps in, I encourage you to come to the Squad Activation Huddle for the Side with Love Action Center. 

Bring your energy and your love for the world we can co-create to an organization that will help you in the work of helping others in.

In faith and love,

Elisse Ghitelman

Squad Leader

Member, First Parish in Waltham, MA

ps. You can also connect with us on Facebook, Slack, and on our calendar here: 

Unitarian Universalist Association
24 Farnsworth St
Boston, MA 02210
United States

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