Justice Ministry Overview
Our spiritual lives are inseparable from the struggle for equal access to food, clean air and water, housing, education, employment, health care, and legal defense as well as respect for the rights of women, people of color, immigrants, religious minorities and lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and transgender people. This is based on our belief in inherent worth and dignity of every human being and in the interdependent web of life. Working for justice is therefore as much a spiritual practice as prayer and meditation.
Justice Action Ministry (JAM) at First UU
The purpose of First UU’s Justice Action Ministry (JAM) is to help First UU live our vision: “to transform and heal ourselves and our world through reason and love” as well as our mission: “to fulfill our vision by creating community, working for justice, and engaging diversity,” using the guiding phrase, “help us do justice, don’t do it for us.”
We have a number of active JAM Teams working on different areas of social justice. As needs and interest within the congregation arise, JAM Teams can begin and end. Each Team sends a representative to quarterly JAM Council Meetings which help coordinate our work together.
Advocacy
BREAD (Building Responsibility, Equality, and Dignity)
www.breadcolumbus.com
First UU is a founding member of BREAD, a congregation-based community organization of many different religious congregations in Central OH. These congregations are united through BREAD to research proven solutions and apply non-partisan pressure on elected officials to improve housing, health care, employment, education, and other poverty-related problems in central Ohio.
We encourage all First UU Members who are able to attend BREAD’s yearly Nehemiah Action, when BREAD demonstrates its people power and asks elected officials to commit to proven solutions. This year, the Nehemiah Action is on Tuesday, May 13, 2025, from 6:30-8:30pm at the Celeste Center, 717 E 17th Ave, Columbus, OH 43211. Put it on your calendar today!
First UUers can also become BREAD Network Members, who encourage and remind others to attend the Nehemiah Action, as well as join Research Teams to research proven solutions, and/or join our First UU BREAD Team to help coordinate our work as a congregation.
Democracy & Human Rights
First UU’s Democracy & Human Rights Focus Group works with a number of local and national groups to promote and protect democracy and human rights. Some issues the team has worked on in the past include working against gerrymandering and promoting trans rights and abortion. This group often registers voters, makes calls to state and national legislators, writes postcards and letters to the editor, and collects signatures for ballot initiatives.
This group typically communicates via email. We have both a small team of folks who plan opportunities and a wider email group of folks who participate. To learn more, join our email group, or get involved with our planning team, please email contact-democracyandhumanrights@firstuucolumbus.org.
Yellow Shirts
You can buy a bright yellow Side with Love shirt at our Justice Action Ministry (JAM) Table after Sunday services. We often encourage each other to wear these shirts to protests and actions to make it easier for First UUers to find one another and to share about our congregation with the wider community. We have youth sizes xs, s, m, l, and adult sizes s, m, l, xl, 2xl, 3xl, 4xl, 5xl. All sizes are $25 each.
Protest Signal Group
This is a Signal group for First UUers interested in going to protests or supporting other First UUers in doing so in future and would like a way to hear about protests, coordinate rides, signs, etc, and connect with other First UUers who go, you can join our signal group!
If you don’t have Signal, it is a free app that you can download for your phone, computer, or tablet. It has a lot of good security features, which is why many community organizers use it.
You will need to download Signal before you can join the group. If you haven’t downloaded Signal yet on the device you are using, clicking the link will take you to a page with information about how to get the app.
Click this link to join our signal group:
https://bit.ly/firstuu-protesting
Direct Service
Feed & Read Ohio Team
We encourage all First UUers to pick up a Feed & Read Ohio green bag at the greeter stand once a month and fill it with food and other essential items from the monthly list.
Feed & Read Ohio, founded by First UU Member Jacques Angelino, has been fighting hard to deliver food and books to underserved areas. Angelino has been delivering food for more than 15 years, and in 2017, Feed & Read Ohio was formalized and its work in Central Ohio was started. We operate on simple principles: every person deserves dignity, food to eat and the right to literacy. Every week, Feed & Read Ohio delivers food and books for Central Ohio families who are not able to access food pantries or other kinds of resources.
During and after our yearly August service, our congregation blesses and fills backpacks full of school supplies for back-to-school. Around Christmas, we have a Feed & Read Ohio Tree with requested Christmas presents for children and youth. Feed & Read Ohio also gives turkeys and hams for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter every year.
If you’re interested in learning more, doing a ride along or volunteering, talk with Jacques at the table in Beach Hall after our Sunday Services!
YWCA Dinner Team
The YWCA Family Center provides transitional housing and needed services to families with the goal of enabling them to become self-sufficient. First UU provides dinner at the Center each 4th Friday.
If you would like to help cook and serve, please email Tim Hooks, hookstj “at” gmail.com.
Eco-Justice Team
First UU’s Eco-Justice Team shares tips and ideas for living more sustainably as individuals and working for change collectively. Join our email list by contacting us at contact-ecojustice@firstuucolumbus.org.
A subgroup of the Eco-Justice Team, the Green Team, has researched and gotten board approval for a solar panel system which would supply 50% of the church’s electricity.
Red Cards
The Immigrant Legal Resource Center has created Red Cards. These cards give examples of how all people living in the United States can exercise their rights, regardless of immigration status, when encountering ICE Officers. First UU prints these cards for distribution to anyone who might need them.
You can pick up Red Cards at the JAM/Feed & Read Ohio Table in Beach Hall after the service.
FILA (Fund for Immigration Legal Assistance)
This First UU fund provides direct assistance to immigrants in Central Ohio in need of help. Beneficiaries of the fund are residents of Central Ohio, with preference given to parent(s) of underage children, and young persons who fit within the DACA age guidelines.
You can help by spreading the word about the fund with those you know who may need it, by donating or raising funds, or by joining the FILA Committee. Learn more or get the application here. Send the committee an email with a question or idea: fila@firstuucolumbus.org.
Pinkhaven List
Pinkhaven is a collective of organizations and individuals who are committed to trans liberation and joy and to growing community defense, mutual-aid, and alternative systems of care for gender diverse people. UU Service Committee helps to connect trans folks in need of mutual aid and grassroots organizers with UU congregations. If you would like to be part of the First UU community who would respond to a request for mutual aid by assisting with transportation, housing, food, or resource gathering, join our Pinkhaven group by emailing pink-haven@firstuucolumbus.org
Anti-Racism, Anti-Oppression, and Multiculturalism at First UU
See our page on the 8th Principle and Anti-Racism to learn more
Anti-Racist Allies Group
Our Anti-Racism Allies Group lifts up and support the efforts and goals of our Black, Indigenous, and People of Color network, as well as working to dismantle systems of racism and oppression within ourselves and within our community, so that we can fully live into the Welcoming Congregation that we all dream First UU to be.. We are asking all participants in this group to have gone through an in-depth antiracism training such as Beloved Conversations or our, Living the Pledge.
Please email contact-anti-racistallies@firstuucolumbus.org for more information.
Land Acknowledgement & Connecting with Native Peoples
Our First UU staff, with guidance from our Share the Plate Partner, the Native American Indian Center of Central Ohio (NAICCO), has written a land acknowledgement, which we say each week:
“We gather on the stolen land of the Wyandot, Miami, Seneca, Erie, Shawnee, Delaware and Cayuga people, many of whom were forcibly removed. We support the Native American Indian Center of Central Ohio in their Land Back campaign, and we know that we have more to do to be in true relationship and solidarity with this land and those indigenous to it.”
A land acknowledgement is a starting place for our learning, but not the destination. In writing it, and in connecting with NAICCO, we have learned that the vast majority of people native to Ohio have been forcibly removed; there are no reservations or other areas of land in the state of Ohio owned by native nations or tribes. Most of the native people who are part of NAICCO are from other parts of the country. NAICCO’s goal is to raise money to acquire land in Central Ohio that would be owned, managed, and used by native people, and they are not in need of volunteers at this time. We share half of our offering plate with NAICCO for a month each year in support of this goal.
You can deepen your learning about the history of native people in Central Ohio. From time to time, we have speakers at First UU from NAICCO or the Ohio History Connection to teach us more. The podcast The Ohio Country about indigenous Ohio history is also a great resource. If you would like to work with others to learn more, please contact Rev. Amanda.
First UU is also a member congregation of several local justice organizations:
BREAD (Building Responsibility, Equality, and Dignity)
First UU is a founding member of BREAD, a congregation-based community organization of many different religious congregations in Central OH. These congregations are united through BREAD to research proven solutions and apply non-partisan pressure on local decision makers to improve housing, health care, employment, education, and other poverty-related problems in central Ohio.
IACO (Interfaith Association of Central Ohio)
“The Interfaith Association of Central Ohio (IACO) is made up of nine diverse faiths who have come together for one purpose: To create an interfaith community based on understanding, friendship, and trust.”
Ohio Fair Food
Fair Food groups partner with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers to support and expand the Fair Food Program that protects farmworkers from abuse, exploitation, and modern-day slavery. Farmworkers, growers, and buyers who participate in the Fair Food Program ensure that workers receive fair wages and have decent working conditions. Ohio Fair Food, the local organizing group for the Fair Food Program, raises awareness about the FFP and takes actions calling on corporate buyers to join the Coalition of Immokalee Workers in their struggle.
Unitarian Universalist Justice Ohio (UUJO)
“Unitarian Universalist Justice Ohio, (UUJO) is a volunteer organization of UU activists, committed since 2014 to facilitate the weaving together of individuals, congregations, Ohio communities and organizations, with the larger world to serve justice, equity, and inclusion.”
Share the Plate Partners 2025-26
We share half of our plate offering with a different partner each month. Usually, on the first Sunday of the month, we invite our partner to share more about their work during the worship service. You can contribute during the service by putting cash or check in the plate as it is passed or online by selecting Share the Plate.
Share the Plate partners are selected by the JAM Council each year and approved by the congregation at the annual meeting. Share the Plate Partner Selection is based on several factors:
- Congregational Survey – we select partners working on the issues that First UUers care most about
- Collaboration – we select partners that we can collaborate with in ways beyond giving money
- Depth – if a partnership is going well, we often stick with a partner for many years. This allows us to develop a deeper working relationship with a partner, developing familiarity with each other and learning how we can best work together.
July & August: Deaf World Against Violence Everywhere (DWAVE)
https://dwaveohio.org/who-we-are/
DWAVE’s mission is to promote the empowerment of and equality for Ohio’s diverse Deaf, DeafBlind, and Hard of Hearing communities by offering culturally affirmative advocacy and education, while inspiring community accountability, in response to oppression and relationship and sexual violence. DWAVE is a Deaf-run agency that has been providing direct advocacy service for 20 years to the Deaf, Deaf Blind, Deaf Disabled, and Hard of Hearing Communities.
Part of our hope in sharing our plate with DWAVE is to make more connections with the Deaf community and to become more welcoming to Deaf people, beyond just providing interpretation on Sunday mornings.
September: League of Women Voters
The League of Women Voters is a nonpartisan, grassroots organization working to protect and expand voting rights and ensure everyone is represented in our democracy. We empower voters and defend democracy through advocacy, education, and litigation, at the local, state, and national levels.
Our local LWV has been one of our Democracy & Human Rights Focus Group’s main partners for voter registration.
October: Abortion Forward
https://abortionforward.org/about/
“To expand and protect abortion access, [Abortion Forward uses] the political process to champion policy changes, mobilize activists and voters, and endorse and support elected officials working to protect bodily autonomy.”
Our Healthcare Justice and Democracy & Human Rights focus groups worked with Abortion Forward to get signatures for the Reproductive Freedom amendment that passed last fall.
November: Wednesday Food Pantry at The Church on Oakland Park
The Church on Oakland Park believes in God’s economy of abundance, trusting that there is more than enough for all of us when we are committed to caring for one another. That’s why we host a drive-thru food pantry from our parking lot every Wednesday from 3-5 PM.
During the pandemic and as inflation has gone up, the Wednesday Food Pantry really stepped up, providing food to over 300 families a week, more than they had per month before. Located in South Linden, those who volunteer are a diverse group of people from many races and faith communities, many of whom have also received food from the pantry.
Volunteers from First UU are welcome, any Wednesday!
December: Holiday Appeal & Ministers Discretionary Fund
January: Bottoms Up Diaper Bank
https://www.bottomsup.life/about-bottoms-up.html
Bottoms Up Diaper Drive was founded in August, 2018 by Tim and Jo Welsh as an outgrowth of their love for one another, their faith, and their desire to help meet the needs of families who can’t afford enough diapers to keep their children clean, dry, and healthy.
Since then, Bottoms Up has delivered more than 560,000 diapers to over 70 food pantries and child care facilities in central Ohio for distribution to those in need, including First UU’s own Feed and Read Ohio. Bottoms Up continues to grow, and diapers are collected through drives at churches, schools, and businesses or purchased through the generosity of others.
February: DRUUMM (Diverse Revolutionary UU Multicultural Ministries)
DRUUMM is the oldest and largest Unitarian Universalist People of Color ministry and anti-racist community organization based in North America. DRUUUMM is an integrated auxiliary organization affiliated with the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) and operates as a 501(c)3 as defined by the United States IRS. We are supported by DRUUMM Members — individuals who self-identify as People of Color and affirm our Unitarian Universalist mission and values. People who self-identify as White are encouraged to belong and organize with UU Allies for Racial Equity, our close partner.
Each year, DRUUMM puts on a yearly Public Worship service, and this year our congregation had the opportunity to sponsor and participate in that service on June 15. We plan to sponsor the service next year as well through this collection.
March: Pathway Clubhouse
“Pathway Clubhouse is a community-based program of psychosocial rehabilitation for people who have a mental illness. The Clubhouse model began in New York in 1948 with Fountain House and has grown nationally and internationally as a holistic (addressing the whole person) approach empowering people living with mental illness. Pathway Clubhouse is certified by Clubhouse International and is nationally accredited by CARF. Membership in the Clubhouse is lifelong and is at the member’s discretion. Opportunities for social interaction, developing relationships, employment, education and building community are integral to the holistic approach of the Clubhouse model.”
Through BREAD, First UU fought to bring Pathway Clubhouse to Columbus, and we hope to continue our relationship with Pathway.
April: Connecting Community Corridors for Pollinators, Birds, People, and the Planet
This corridor is made of the yards and container gardens of 50 families in Linden who have received donated native plants, vegetable gardens, or native trees, to support specialist pollinators, birds, and other wildlife, while providing increased food security. They have agreed not to use chemicals on their lawns and leave stems, seed heads, and open ground over the winter for their nests, using permaculture and regenerative agricultural methods to enhance soil health and resilience to climate change. All recipients are hyperlocal to Sunny Glen Garden as the educational demonstration site to reduce transportation barriers and make it easier to share garden equipment, seeds, plants, and produce. The corridor is coordinated by First UU member Dianne Kadonaga, with The Urban Farm Church and other local organizations as collaborative partners.
Funding supports the addition of native plantings and educational programming, as we find ways to improve food security, increase biodiversity, and strive to be more inclusive of everyone in the neighborhood. We plan to have an earth day event for First UUers to volunteer with the Connecting Community Corridors!
May: Native American Indian Center of Central Ohio (NAICCO)
https://www.naicco.com/
The Native American Indian Center of Central Ohio (NAICCO) is devoted to preserving and restoring balance in the lives of Native Americans through traditional, cultural, educational, family, community, and wellness driven values and initiatives.
NAICCO’s central focus for several years has been a capital campaign, Land Back NAICCO, to buy land that will be a space in Ohio that the Native community can call their own. The exciting news is that NAICCO has finally reached their initial goal and they are finally planning to purchase land in 2024! We feel it is important to support NAICCO as First UU’s physical location is built on land that was stolen from native peoples.
June: Kaleidoscope Youth Center (KYC)
“Since 1994, KYC has been the largest and longest-standing organization in Ohio solely dedicated to serving and supporting queer youth. KYC works to provide a safer place, programming, and leadership opportunities so that youth can be free to explore who they are and empowered to become their confident, truest self.”
KYC is not a part of any one of JAM’s focus groups, but provides a safe space for queer youth in Central Ohio, which has included First UU youth. We also hope to draw on KYC as a resource for learning to be a more welcoming church for people of all genders.