All Blog Posts (80)

At its March meeting the UUPLAN Board re-organized by electing Virginia Kirk and Rev. Sandra Fees as Co-Chairs.  Their election followed the resignation of Rev. Peter Newport as President.  Rev. Newport is on sabbatical and requested time to attend to study, travel and other professional responsibilities.

Virginia Kirk is well known to UUPLANners because of her prior role as Interim Outreach Director and later as Assistant Director.  She comes to the Board with a thorough…

The Environmental Justice Task Force is sponsoring two workshops with Clean Water Action in April and May in our congregation in Athens, PA.

Click here for a flyer you can hang in your congregation or share with your friends.

  Oppose:   Abortion Exchange Ban Bills

 Support:  Health Amendment to the Abortion Exchange Ban Bill

Our UUPLAN’s Reproductive Justice Team has been closely watching Harrisburg and is urging UUs throughout PA to call both their Senators and Representatives to oppose new attacks on women’s access to abortion. 

There are bills in the House (HB 742, HB 818) and Senate (SB 3) that all prohibit 'private' insurance from covering abortion services in the…

Here’s what I jotted down at the budget session at the Pennsylvania Progressive Summit on 3/2/13:

Mike Wood, Research Director, PA Budget and Policy Center:

• In 6 years, there has been only a 5% increase in tax revenue in PA, so we’re trying to do more with less.
• New budget proposes $90 million increase in basic education funding. That’s small after cutting nearly $1 billion in previous 2 budgets.
• “House of cards” budget because it depends…

Dear UUPLANers, 



Your help is urgently needed. UUPLAN has been working with the Coalition to STOP Payday Lending in PA to oppose any legislation which would regulate predatory lending in Pennsylvania. Currently payday loans are illegal in PA including payday loan transactions online.  As you can see from the following notes, Sen. Brewster is a critical vote. He is a Democrat on the Committee representing Allegheny and Westmoreland who was in favor…

Wow, It is such an exciting time to be working for immigration justice  in Pennsylvania. Our team continues to grow in representation from across the commonwealth. We are still looking for interested and energized members from northeastern, central (Harrisburg), west (Pittsburgh) and northwest (Erie). 

 We have continued to partner with PICC (PA Immigration and Citizenship Coalition) and the coalition Pennsylvania United for Immigration Reform.

The City Council of Philadelphia…

Here's some great info from Pete Higgins of Wellsprings UU who has been closely following the NRA's response to hearings and actions in Congress:

A wonderful man in my congregation (Wellsprings UU in Chester County) is pushing me to make sure UUs across the state are aware that many congregations are working for sensible gun laws at the federal and state levels..

George Higgins, known to all as Pete, sent me this great primer on important legislation and what we can do. If you like any of these ideas and want to get more involved in gun control - or to report in on what your congregation is doing, please send an email to…

For our UUs in the Lancaster area, here's a senator to get to know. From Sunday's Philadelphia Inquirer.

    Twenty five UUs from the Germantown, First Philadelphia, Buxmont, Main Line,  Delaware County, Lower Bucks and Restoration congregations gathered on Feb. 3^rd at the Unitarian Society of Germantown to meet and hear from Fabricio Rodriguez, leader of the Philadelphia chapter of…

UUPLAN is now connected with the Philadelphia Unemployment Project as part of our economic justice work. Here's what they had to say after the votes in Congress Wednesday and Thursday:

Friends, As part of the last minute deal to avoid the fiscal cliff, Congress has extended Emergency Unemployment Benefits for another year! This means that the 2 million unemployed workers across the country who would have been cut off will now continue to receive…

Dear Friends,



I hope this email finds you warm and safe after Hurricane Sandy.  So many people in our southeastern Philadelphia area ending up being fortunate on a relative scale.  Many folks, however, were not so fortunate.  Loss of life, injury, property damage, cold, hunger and more have all struck untold numbers of folks. 



Once again, climate change shows a dangerous face.  We are told time and again that we are to expect increased numbers on high impact natural…

Hi All: Realizing I have not posted too much lately, but it does not mean UUPLAN is not active. Director Dennis Brunn spent four days in Pittsburgh earlier this month, meeting and identifying liaisons and new members at:

First Unitarian Church of Pittsburgh

The UU Church of the South Hills

UU Church of the North Hills

Allegheny UU Church of Pittsburgh

So please keep in mind that Dennis is not taking leisure trips for UUPLAN. He is intent on making sure our…

In response to the Voter ID crisis caused by a highly restrictive and complicated Pennsylavnia voting law,  UUPLAN member Jill Murray (on far right in photo) has taken a leadership role at the Unitarian Society of Germantown in northwest Philadelphia.  Jill went to trainings and planning sessions,  recruited over 10 others to also get training and is now coordinating a series of Saturday "Voter ID Clinics" that are designed to help registered voters obtain the needed documents in order to…

This event highly recommended by UUPLAN board member Cynthia Jones: It's pretty easy to catch a bus from Philadelphia and other parts of Pennsylvania to make our voices heard in protecting the environment and controlling the drilling. The post below also contains great facts on the damage done by the drillers, the failure rate and call for a study of the cumulative impact of fracking in Pennsylvania's 3 major watersheds:

Here is the latest from Protecting Our…

Just realized we haven't really filled you in on what happened. Here is a link to the Inquirers's article on what is in the budget Gov. Corbett signed, but here is the part of the article significant to our work of the last 3 months:

One of the trade-offs was steep rollbacks in programs that serve the poor and disabled. County…

This just in from the New Sanctuary Movement – one of UUPLAN’s partners as we try to make positive changes in Pennsylvania. Three of our UUPLAN members did join immigrations rights supporters at a June 20th rally.

“It has been a continuous fight to ensure that none of the 21 anti-immigrant bills proposed in the state legislature become law. The bills threaten to compromise the welfare of the entire state by granting more power to police to enforce immigration law, withholding state…

Just read this on pennlive.com, the web site for the Harrisburg Patriot-Ledger. We expect budget passage any day now and urge you to still consider calling a legislator asking for some funds to be restored -- for general assistance, medical assistance or education. There are a lot of cuts to choose from.

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports that the General Assembly has two fast-track bills that will put the Commonwealth in line with the federal government. The bills, one in the House and one already through the Senate, would forbid…