Take 5 for Advocacy This Week: July 27, 2020

Actions You Can Take This Week

DON'T FORGET TO VOTE: This is the time to turn in your ballots and to please make sure that your families and friends are also turning in their ballots too!  Even though this past Monday, July 27th, was the last day for on-line registration, a person can still register and vote in this upcoming primary election.  Please see the links below, especially the addresses and times where you can still register and vote on August 4th!

How to return ballots:

Ballots were mailed out to registered voters on July 15! If someone hasn’t received their ballot by now, call King County Elections: (206) 296-8683 to figure out the best way to get a ballot, or print one online.
Find your non-partisan Voter Pamphlet information from King County online.

• Use a Ballot Drop Box: Turn ballot in by 8 p.m. on election day to a drop box near you. View drop box locations around the county.

• Mail your ballot: No stamp needed! Put your ballot in any mailbox. Make sure that it will be postmarked by 5 p.m. on Election Day.

• Vote Center: Go to a vote center for assistance voting in-person. Vote Centers are at King County Elections HQ in Renton and CenturyLink Field in Seattle. Vote Centers are taking important COVID-19 health precautions, and ask that folks wear masks (they will have some available too). Click here for hours & info.

For questions related to voting, call King County Elections: (206) 296-8683 or visit www.kingcounty.gov/vote.

Sustaining Our Worship During & After a Pandemic

A note from Pastor Rich:

The congregation met via Zoom on Wednesday July 22nd. Those who attended voiced some sadness for some of the things our Zoom worship cannot provide like hugs, congregational singing and cake. Overall though the feedback was that given the restrictions of Covid, things are going quite well. People are generally pleased with the Sunday service and appreciate some of the things Zoom gatherings provide, like opportunity to see everyone’s faces during worship, the ease of attending worship and discovering new music. One of the primary advantages of Zoom worship is that we have people participating from far away and our attendance is up significantly.

The reality is that we will be doing Zoom worship for many months to come and possibly we will keep Zoom worshipping at some level even after a vaccine has been distributed to everyone. Given that, we are now moving from doing Zoom worship as an emergency response, to working out how we can continue to do such worship sustainably. That means that we are going to need to have more people trained in using the technology and we will need to standardize the technology we are using so that various people can do the work.

The long and the short of it is that we are building something new and lasting and that will take some time. We ask that the congregation please be patient as we work out a system that will run as smoothly as our traditional worship did.

Environmental Voter Project Training on Aug. 4

The Environmental Justice Team of the Pacific Northwest Conference of the UCC will host a training with the Environmental Voter Project on Tuesday, August 4, at 2 p.m. on Zoom.

The Environmental Voter Project’s mission is to persuade environmentally passionate people to vote. Statistics show that many of them don’t. This has effects, not only on the outcome of elections, but on policy decisions. Politicians shape their agendas around the concerns of reliable voters. The EVP targets twelve states where turnout among environmentalists is particularly poor, reaching out to them through texting and phone calls. This is strictly nonpartisan. The EVP never endorses candidates or supports initiatives on the ballot. They simply offer information and encouragement.

 On Wednesday, August 5, the EVP will be sending 500,000 text messages to Florida residents to urge them to sign up for vote-by-mail. The PNC Environmental Justice Team has made a commitment to send 25,000 of them. The training on August 4 will help prepare folks to take part in this mass text message effort!

The Keystone Green Team has identified voting as a key action for climate justice, and several members of the team are participating in this training. If you’d like to take part, contact Pastor Yuki, or sign up with Roberta Rominger by emailing roberta.rominger@ucc-ccmi.org.

Meaningful Movies Online: I Am Not Your Negro

7 P.M.. WEDNESDAY, JULY 29

Release Year: 2016
Running Time: 92 minutes
Director: Raoul Peck

In 1979, James Baldwin wrote a letter to his literary agent describing his next project, “Remember This House.” The book was to be a revolutionary, personal account of the lives and assassinations of three of his close friends: Medgar Evers, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr.  At the time of Baldwin’s death in 1987, he left behind only 30 completed pages of this manuscript. Filmmaker Raoul Peck envisions the book James Baldwin never finished.

Please watch the film before the discussion.  It’s free on Kanopy via the library. It’s also available for 99 cents on YouTube and Amazon (free on Amazon if you have a prime account).

Email meaningfulmoviesspokane@gmail.com to get the Zoom link for the discussion, which will be held at 7 p.m. (Pacific Time) on July 29.

Take 5 for Advocacy This Week: July 22, 2020

EXTEND EVICTION MORITORIUM:  Washington’s eviction moratorium ends August 1. Without an extension, hundreds of thousands of Washington residents could lose their homes.

A new analysis based on U.S. Census data estimates that without adequate rent assistance, 195,000 Washington households could face eviction over the next four months if the moratorium expires. Among those, Communities of Color are likely to be hit the hardest. Even before COVID-19, Black/African American households were about 10-times and Latinx renter households were almost twice as likely to face eviction as white households. Homeless students service provider David Sims said, “These numbers are infuriating, but not surprising.” We must also consider the layers upon layers of trauma that residents, particularly from Communities of Color, are experiencing right now with increased health issues, loss of family members, income loss, childcare challenges, and more. This is on top of the daily fear of losing their home. 

The Washington Low-Income Housing Alliance is asking for folks to call for lawmakers to extend the eviction moratorium through March 2021. Take action at https://bit.ly/ExtendEvictionMoratorium. 

You can also talk about your advocacy  and share the action link on your social media networks, using the the hashtags #HomesAreEssential and #RentReliefNow, and encourage others to join you in this effort.