On Friday and Saturday, April 26 – 27, UCC delegates from around Vermont will gather at the Lake Morey Conference Center to conduct the yearly business of the Conference. Peter will attend for us (and serve as the scribe for the conference).
The business of the meeting is much like the business of our annual meeting: we’ll pass a budget, elect officers and discuss the ongoing business of the various ministries of the conference. We make future plans, and we try to encourage one another in the mutual ministry we share. One of the priorities on the table this year will be a discussion (again!) about global warming. That particular resolution, which you can view by clicking here, is titled: “Let Justice Roll Down: Declaring support for the Green New Deal and affirming the intersectionality of climate justice with all justice issues.”
The beloved Gilbert and Sullivan musical, The Pirates of Penzance, showing next week at Northern Vermont University, is under the direction of Mary Jane Austen and Erik Kroncke.
The show runs from Thursday, April 25 – Sunday, April 28. Showtimes are 7pm — except for Sunday’s show which starts at 2pm. Tickets are $10 at the door.
On Sunday, April 28th at 3:00 p.m. at least 20 professional musicians will gather to present “Music for an April Afternoon.” The concert will be held at the Unitarian Church at 130 Main Street and will highlight not only Monteverdi Music School’s (MMS) talented faculty (including Joni McCraw, Mary Jane Austin and Erik Kroncke) but will also feature Counterpoint, Vermont’s professional vocal ensemble, which calls MMS at the Center for Arts and Learning its home base for rehearsals. With such a diverse representation of faculty members performing there will be something for everyone on the program.
Karen Songhurst, board president, says “This concert is key to helping fund our annual fund as well as our scholarship program. We strive to make music education accessible to everyone in the community. We hope the local community will turn out to support their local community music nonprofit’s 25 years and celebrate the immense talent in our area.” A sample of the faculty on the program include Eliza Thomas playing a Schubert piano Impromptu and Doug Perkins playing a Bach Sonata on guitar. Clarinettist Joni McCraw, pianist Luke Rackers and mezzo soprano Lindsey Warren will perform a selection from VT composer Erik Nielsen’s “Until Time Itself…” Guitarist Daniel Gaviria will play La Catedral by Agustin Barrios Mangore.
In addition to the teaching faculty, Counterpoint, directed by Nathaniel Lew, will present selections from their Six Degrees program which is an educational project and musical panorama about the threat of climate change locally and worldwide. The title Six Degrees refers both to the cataclysmic result of the warming of the planet by six degrees Celsius, which would effectively end life on our planet, as well as to the “six degrees of separation” that connect all of humanity.
This year’s faculty concert will also have a special reception in honor of the organization’s 25th anniversary and to honor Joni McCraw, who is retiring from teaching after 30 years at Monteverdi. Tickets are $20 at the door, $15 for students & seniors, and kids 10 and under are free.
Beauregard, Alabama was struck by a mile-wide EF-4 tornado early in March, leaving the community in shock and their housing stock in tatters.
The Fuller Center for Housing, with whom we have worked in the past, is partnering with the local hospital to build several houses this spring and summer. In late September they are organizing a blitz week where they hope to build six houses in one week. They will have all the materials they need, courtesy of the hospital; labor is now being lined up.
If you have interest in being a part of a team of volunteers, please let me know. Below is the letter we received outlining the vision.
Horrible scenes like this can be found throughout the rural community of Beauregard, Alabama, where 23 people were killed by a massive tornado earlier this month.
March 25, 2019
Greetings, It was just announced a few minutes ago on our website that the Millard Fuller Legacy Build will be coming to a community where it is desperately needed. I hope to see you there in the fall. Here’s the story we just posted, and we’ll share more details when they are available:
The rural Alabama community of Beauregard — an unincorporated area of about 10,000 people just east of Auburn — was devastated March 3 by a massing EF-4 tornado that carved a nearly mile-wide path of destruction. It killed 23 people ranging in age from 6 to 89 in the deadliest tornado strike since an EF-5 twister killed 24 people in Moore, Okla., in 2013.
East Alabama Medical Center is the largest hospital in the region and wants to help families rebuild their lives. They turned to someone a half-hour away, someone with whom they have partnered before to build affordable homes — Kim Roberts, executive director of the Chattahoochee Valley Fuller Center.
Roberts was among those who visited Beauregard on Monday to see how The Fuller Center for Housing and specifically The Chattahoochee Fuller Center Project could help. The result is a plan to begin three new houses next month and then bring the annual Millard Fuller Legacy Build to Beauregard in September for a six-home blitz week.
“When we got there, they basically said, ‘Whatever you need, we’re gonna make it happen,'” Roberts said of her meeting with local officials who will be handling such issues as inspections that require much different handling and timing during a blitz build than during normal weeks. She gave much credit to State Rep. Debbie Wood for helping to get things moving quickly.
Things are moving so fast that the exact land upon which the homes will be built has yet to be decided but will be in the area hardest hit by the tornado. Roberts said she hopes to learn more specifics by the end of the week but is committed to beginning work on at least one of three homes by the end of April.
“They said the morale is so poor and really down,” Roberts said. “But we’ll do something next month just to get the morale up and get them excited for September coming. The Fuller Center for Housing is honored to be called to help get some of the families there back into decent homes and will hold our annual Millard Fuller Legacy Build there in late September,” said Fuller Center President David Snell, noting that the build will kick off on Sept. 29, 2019.
“Beauregard is just 30 miles south of Lanett, Millard Fuller hometown, making it an especially appropriate place to build as we commemorate the 10th anniversary of his passing.”
More details will come soon about Legacy Build registration, lodging options and more. With six houses to be built in just one week, The Fuller Center is counting on volunteers from the local area and across the nation to pitch in for this badly needed recovery effort. Stay tuned!
David Snell, President,
The Fuller Center for Housing, 701 S. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., Americus, GA, 31719
