Bellingham Unitarian Fellowship’s (BUF) Climate Justice Month Events so far are as follows. We’ve had to extend out into May and there are a couple more events that are in the planning stages! Also, we are beginning to work on plans with Lummi Nation for the 2015 2nd Annual Stommish Sacred Summit which is tentatively planned for June 4-6, 2015. We’ll also be accompanying Lummi Nation to GA on June 27, 2015. So watch for more from BUF in the coming months!


March 22, 2014 Adult Sunday Forum: “What’s So Important about Snow?” with Scott Pattee, Water Supply Specialist with the Washington Snow Survey Office. 9:15 am, Conference Room

In keeping with the UN World Water Day and to kick off our “30 Days of Climate Justice Action – Climate Justice Month,” Scott will be describing the history of the Snow Survey and Water Supply Forecasting Program along with why snow is such a vital part of all of our lives, all the while demonstrating the uses and users of our data, information and products.


March 26, 2014 The Earth is our Mother: An Evening of Dances of Universal Peace” with Marti Dimock, 7:00 pm, Social Hall

We will explore our relationship to the planet, touching on gratitude, honoring our pain for the world, seeing with new eyes, and going forth, inspired by the Work That Reconnects of Joanna Macy, environmental activist and Buddhist scholar. The Dances of Universal Peace are simple, easy-to-learn movements and songs inspired by world spiritual traditions — heart-awakening circle dances dedicated to peace within and without. All dances taught; live music!


April 1, 2014 “Origins: Our Roots. Our Planet. Our Future” film, Dinner & Film 6:15 pm • Library

Join us for the Community Night Dinner and the film “Origins: Our Roots. Our Planet. Our Future.” Grab your dinner plate and head into the library! We are more isolated from our natural environment than ever before, and that dynamic has resulted in an unparalleled number of chronic health concerns, a deteriorating planet, and increasingly severe obstacles for our children and grandchildren. “Origins” is a documentary about the intrinsic connection between the human lifestyle, our health and the vitality of our planet. Four years, 19 countries, and 24 experts in anthropology, medicine, ecology, and health have exposed the roots of our DNA and how to prevent the modern world from making you sick. It demonstrates that the keys to survival for both the human race and the planet that surrounds us can only be understood by looking back on the origins of our species nearly 200,000 years ago and illustrates that the forces that compromise our potential to thrive are only outmatched by our capacity to provoke profound and positive change.


April 12, 2015 Grand Canyon Service

Description forthcoming

10:30 am, Sanctuary


April 15, 2015 RE Community Night Dinner and Film: "Viva La Causa: The Story of Cesar Chavez and A Great Movement For Social Justice, Dinner: 6:00 pm, Film: 6:40 pm

Join the RE Team as they prepare a delectable dinner of Posole with various toppings and condiments, tortilla chips, and green salad and an evening viewing “Viva La Causa: The Story of Cesar Chavez and A Great Movement For Social Justice,” a film on Cesar Chavez and the grape boycotts of the 1960s. Local farmworkers will be joining us and sharing our meal, their stories and struggles, not so very different from the struggles of the grape farmworkers. Come for an educational evening and support our youth and RE staff and volunteers as they venture into learning about farmworker struggles for justice and equity. This event is designed to help prepare BUFsters, young and old, for the upcoming March For Dignity event on May 3rd, where we will march, as a congregation, in solidarity with our local farmworkers.

Believe it or not, this is a piece of BUF’s history as BUFsters participated and supported farmworkers in the grape boycotts that took place in the 1960s which the film describes.

“Viva La Causa” focuses on one of the seminal events in the march for human rights – the grape strike and boycott led by César Chávez and Dolores Huerta in the 1960s. Viva la Causa will show how thousands of people from across the nation joined in a struggle for justice for the most exploited people in our country – the workers who put food on our tables. It tells the story of a dedicated coalition of people from diverse classes, races and religions who stood together for justice, proving that the mightiest walls of oppression can be toppled when people are united and their cause is just.


April 19, 2015 Adult Sunday Forum: "Proposed Environmental Tax for Washington” with representatives of CarbonWA, 9:15 am, Conference Room

Join us as CarbonWA, an NGO (non-governmental organization) promoting a carbon tax here in WA talks about what that tax would look like. The proposed environmental tax reform will improve Washington’s economy and reduce Washington’s carbon pollution. It is a win/win for those of us who want to help spur economic growth and improve air quality by reducing pollution. Environmental tax reform would:

• Improve air quality and reduce airborne toxins

• Help slow ocean acidity and sea level rise

• Reduce the state sales tax by a full percentage point

• Fund the Working Families Sales Tax Rebate to help working families

• Eliminate the Business and Occupation (B&O) tax for manufacturers

• Pay for these tax reductions with a carbon tax of $25 per ton of CO2


April 19, 2015 BUF Earth Day Service: A Celebration of Mother Earth and Environmental Justice, 10:30 am, Sanctuary

Poets Matthew Brouwer, Kevin Murphy, Betty Scott and singer, musician, J.P. Falcon Grady join Rev. Paul preaching, singing, and speaking up for Mother Earth.

Matthew Brouwer has performed across the west and been featured in regional literary, performance, and visual arts showcases such as Phrasings, Cirque and Strands. He facilitates the Whatcom Juvenile Justice Creative Writing Project and Kintsugi Writers Circle for People Living with Chronic Illness and believes poetry can be a powerful agent for helping people find healing and meaning in their lives. Kevin Murphy has been performing for over 30 years. He is the author of A Beautiful Chaos Demands Energy and also has a poetry CD, Between Onions and Oxygen. He regularly performs on the Chuckanut Radio Hour, has toured the Pacific Northwest and beyond as a member of the New Old Time Chautauqua, and teaches poetry through the Whatcom Juvenile Justice Creative Writing Project. Kevin’s poetry tends toward the comic and the surreal, and he often accompanies himself on guitar or drum. J P Falcon Grady is a Native musician and songwriter who plays acoustic rock, reggae, blues, country, Jawaiian and original compositions. Betty Scott is a poet, essayist and editor. She and JP Falcon Grady will explore the physical and emotional resonances of words and images beneath the veil of denial to speak up for the health and well being of life-sustaining Mother Earth.


April 19, 2015 C2C/BUF Partnership Celebration: “A Look at the Past, A Glimpse of the Future . . .”, After the service (about 12:00 pm), Social Hall

Come enjoy a delicious lunch prepared by our own Christopher Griffen-led team. Join us as we celebrate the C2C/BUF Partnership Team’s tremendous accomplishments over the last two years and it’s plans for the future. Hear from C2C staff, farmworkers and BUF members about partnership activities. Ask questions and learn more about the partnership in preparation for the Partnership’s renewal coming up for congregational vote in May. Activity table provided for our younger members.


April 20, 2015 Unist’ot’en Camp Fundraiser film screening “RESIST: The Unist’oten’s Call to the Land” with guest appearances from the film’s Directors David Goldberg and Eli Hirtle, 7:00 pm, Sanctuary

Join us as WWU students tell the story and their experiences with the Unist’ot’en Camp, a First Nations resistance community whose purpose is to protect sovereign Wet’suwet’en territory in British Columbia, Canada from several proposed pipelines from the Tar Sands Gigaproject and shale gas from Hydraulic Fracturing Projects in the Peace River Region. “RESIST: The Unist’oten’s Call to the Land” is a documentary filmed in 2013 on unceded Wet’suwet’en territory, northern British Columbia, Canada. The film is about the C’ihlts’ehkhyu (Big Frog Clan) and the Camp they established as a year-round resistance to exploitative industry, and what it represents in relation to indigenous sovereignty and the environmental, legal, and social issues surrounding pipeline projects in British Columbia. This fundraiser and educational event is presented by BUF and WWU Students as part of Commit2Repsond’s Climate Justice Action Month (22 March – 22 April, 2015). More info at: http://www.commit2respond.org


May 3, 2015 3rd Annual March for Dignity, After the service about (12:00 pm), Outside front doors. March to Maritime Heritage Park Sunday May 3rd immediately after the service

This is an annual event to demonstrate solidarity with farmworkers in demanding humane immigration reform, fair wages, fair employment practices, safe working conditions, and other immigration and labor issues. Please bring a potluck lunch dish that does not need heating (and can be unrefrigerated for a few hours) to drop off in the entryway before the service. We will transport it for you to Maritime Heritage Park. After the service, grab your coffee or tea to go, bring or pick up a sign, gather in front of BUF, and let’s march together!!! Maritime Heritage Park is the end potluck & rally point for the 19-mile farmworker march that will have started that morning in north Lynden in the wee hours.

We will meet those courageous marchers at the park to celebrate!!