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What do St. Herman’s House of
Hospitality, The Lesbian/Gay Community Service Center, and The YWCA Domestic
Violence Program all have in common?
(A) They are all non-profit
organizations in the Greater Cleveland community.
(B) They all have programs
that benefit the community.
(C) They are all recipients
of Community Focus Collections of Southwest Unitarian Universalist
Church
(D) All of the above
If you
guessed answer D, "All of the above," you are correct! Our church’s
"Community Focus Collections" began in the spring of 1999, when we committed
the offering on the first Sunday of each month to an organization which puts
into practice the principles which we affirm. Our first collection was for
The Cleveland GLBT Center’s Youth Drop-In Program. The money collected went
toward buying a TV for the youth center. Since then our monthly Community
Focus collections have gone to these community organizations:
- The YWCA Domestic Violence Outreach Program
(twice)
- The Berea and Strongsville food banks
- Templum House (a shelter for battered women)
- The Berea Animal Rescue Fund
- The Northern Ohio Chapter of the National
Conference for Community and Justice
- The Cuyahoga Valley National Park’s Junior
Ranger Program
- The Strongsville Senior Center
- The GLBT Center’s Youth Drop-In program (twice)
- Voices for Children (a children’s advocacy
program in Lorain County)
- St. Herman’s House of Hospitality (a shelter
for homeless men)
- The Veteran’s Administration medical facility
in Brecksville
- Planned Parenthood’s Roving Hope program
- Neighborhood Family Practice (a not-for profit
Near West Side Medical Clinic)
- Malachi House (a hospice for the indigent)
- The Cleveland Metroparks
We have helped to purchase
TV’s and VCR’s, bus tickets to enable indigent people get to outreach
programs, training supplies for volunteers, and food and medicines for
rescued animals. We have contributed to wheelchair accessibility at St.
Herman’s, and helped homeless women to have screening for birth control, HIV,
and sexually transmitted infections. We have helped kids from urban areas get
out to the parks and receive environmental education, and helped a hospice
for the indigent to purchase a massage table. Recipient organizations are
those to which members of SWUU and/or our Social Concerns volunteers have
made additional commitments. Our collections have not been for huge sums, but
neither have they been insignificant. The organizations to which we have
donated have been extremely appreciative. And it makes us feel good, too, to
know that we can help even in a small way.
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