Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Lakeland

06/07/2026

05/31/2026

05/24/2026

05/19/2026

✨Please mark your calendars and dig deep for that volunteer spirit energy✨

We need you all to make our Pride in the Park booth a success again this year! 🌈 Volunteers are needed for booth setup, some to work two hour shifts, and lastly to take down the booth. We prefer 3 people for each shift, so no one has to be alone at the booth and the 3rd staffer can go to the restroom, explore, eat, etc. 🍕🏳️‍🌈 Please let Sheri know what time you can help. We still need one volunteer for the 11-1 shift, 2 volunteers for the 1-3 PM shift and 3 folks for the 3-5 PM tear down shift.

Here is the schedule and who has offered to sign up:

8-11 AM Set up booth (Sheri, Tim, Ken)
11 AM - 1 PM (Jenn, Emily)
1-3 PM (Jay Rhodes)
3-5 PM Tear down the booth and return items to UUCL

**Please do not purchase anything - unless it is a donation from you. We are overbudget for this event.

Adam is purchasing the Love Wins fans, stickers, LGBTQ+ buttons, and Love is Love bracelets from Amazon. 🪭

Jenn is getting the cases of water, preferably BOGO, so we can give out twice as much. They have a cooler (Adam's) and we are told there is another cooler in the RE room, but need to confirm that. 💧

Sheri is bringing the ice.🧊

We will be making friendship bracelets for the next few Sundays during snack and after, as well as at the next UUCL community service. More details to come. Kym Edmond has the remaining donated supplies from the Steel family from last year and will organize this. Turns out, we will have some friendship bracelets at our booth after all! 😊

05/17/2026

03/26/2026

Friends & Members - you have FIVE No Kings 3.0 events local to you this Saturday, 3/28! See below for the Polk County registered events ⬇️

❌👑Lake Wales: 10a-12a @ Eagle Ridge Mall (451 Eagle Ridge Dr, Lake Wales)

❌👑 Davenport: 10a-1p @ Posner Park Shopping Plaza (Along Hwy 27, Davenport)

❌👑 Poinciana: 10a-12p @ Solivita Entrance (across from 351 Cypress Pkwy, Poinciana)

❌👑 Downtown Lakeland: 2p-4p @ Freedom Park (161 Bay St, along FL Ave, Lakeland)

❌👑 S. Lakeland (Sins Reyes) 5p-7p @ Lakeside Village (along Harden Blvd & Town Center Dr E, Lakeland)

Contact Heather Norby for a yellow “Side With Love” t-shirt ASAP, only a few days left 💛

03/24/2026

This Women’s History Month, we honor Dorothy Tilden Spoerl—a visionary religious educator, minister, and leader who helped shape Unitarian Universalism for generations.

Ordained in 1929, Spoerl dedicated her life to nurturing curiosity, wonder, and moral imagination in young people and adults alike. From developing groundbreaking religious education curricula to serving congregations and the wider movement, her work affirmed a powerful truth: that faith calls us to grow, question, and act with purpose.

She believed education could help us make wiser choices—and that each person carries the potential to help build a better world.

Her legacy continues in the ways we teach, learn, and live our faith today.

Read her full story at the link in the comments.

01/09/2026

Statement on the killing of Renee Nicole Good by ICE:

We grieve the killing of Renee Nicole Good, a 37 year-old mother and legal observer, by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Minneapolis yesterday—an act of state violence that has stolen a life and reverberates through an already-wounded community. This is not an isolated incident, but the result of policies that criminalize immigration and enforce borders through fear, surveillance, and force rather than care.

Side With Love is in solidarity with immigrant communities in Minneapolis and across the country who live under constant threat of detention, separation, and death at the hands of the state. We are in solidarity with the faithful masses of people showing up to build a world where the worth and dignity of all are held as sacred and unshakable truth. As people of faith and conscience, we are called by love to tell the truth about this violence, to accompany those most impacted, and to keep organizing toward fulfilling the promise of our communities and institutions to make safety, belonging, and freedom real for all.

We join many others in demanding accountability and an immediate end to I.C.E. operations in all our communities. We invite all people of faith and conscience to grieve together, to refuse the normalization of state violence, and to commit themselves to the long work of transforming the systems that betray our deepest moral and spiritual commitments.