UUCEP has several on-going Social Justice projects, including our foodbank, which serves our neighborhood, our prison ministry, and our commitments to the poor and the dispossessed, along with our commitment to LGBT justice.
UUCEP’s prison ministry at La Tuna Federal Correctional Institute began in 2010 when we received a request from an inmate for UU services. Since then, we have continued to minister to inmates twice a month, with the help of video sermons featuring Rev. Christine Robinson of First UU Church of Albuquerque. Our La Tuna UU group is small – from 1 to 5 inmates on any given week – but lively! Getting to know those living under incarceration has taught us a lot about solidarity and our nation’s penal system. To learn more, talk to any of our La Tuna volunteers (Kathy Anderson, Aurolyn Luykx, and Janet Kincaid), or visit the Facebook group “UUs Resisting New Jim Crow and Mass Incarceration.”
Our members also help out at Villa Maria, the Annunciation House and Nazarene Hall, three El Paso efforts to help the most needy and vulnerable among us.
Since Thanksgiving, when Ruben Garcia of Annunciation House sent out a call to all churches to help with the increase in migrants, we have been serving lunches once a week at one of the shelters. We generally serve burritos, potato salad, coleslaw, and a brownie or cookies. The majority of those we feed are mothers or fathers with small children, just out of detention, where they have not been served fresh, homemade food. We purchase our groceries, plates, cups and cutlery each week. We have had several generous donations and special collections, for which we are very grateful, since our costs run between $150.00 to $200.00 per meal. Donations are always welcome – click the button below to donate via PayPal, or go to our Donate page for other methods.