Social Action
Racial Justice
The Racial Justice Task Force was formed by the Tapestry Board in 2023 in order to spearhead the effort of adopting the 8th Principle at Tapestry. The Racial Justice Task Force is committed to helping Tapestry explore and support racial justice, both within Tapestry and in our wider community.
Community Loaves Program
Tapestry has started the first Community Loaves hub in southern California. The South Orange County hub currently has a small group of bakers from Huntington Beach to San Clemente (Tapestry and non-Tapestry folks), and we desperately need more bakers to meet the needs of our Food Bank Partner, Families Forward. Our hub provides healthy whole grain sandwich bread and energy cookies for their food pantry twice a month.
If you (or any of your friends and family) like to bake and think you might like to join our team, please register for a Zoom session with the program’s founder, Katherine Kehrli. For more information about the South Orange County hub, contact Rick DiBello at rdibello49@gmail.com or by phone or text at 949-212-1159.
Welcoming Neighbors Home
In Tapestry’s Welcoming Neighbors Home Initiative, we work to serve, and to advocate for, people experiencing homelessness. A group of nearly 40 volunteers are working on this effort. We provide dinner one night a week at the Friendship Shelter Alternative Sleeping Location in Laguna Beach, run food drives and kit-making drives. And we are advocating for more affordable housing – and specifically for 125 permanent supportive housing units in Lake Forest by 2025, and for 700 such units in South Orange County by 2035.
Women’s Rights Action Group
The Women’s Rights Action Group is a dynamic group of women, men and youths gathered together to apply our Unitarian Universalist principles in support of women and women’s issues. They provide a network of information and partnership opportunities focused on women to actively engage in as individuals or in groups.
Green Sanctuary
The Green Sanctuary Program is designed to give roots and wings to the vision that, together, we can create a world in which all people make reverence, gratitude, and care for the living Earth central to our lives. For more information or to get involved contact Carol Semelroth at carolsem1009@gmail.com
Please check the newsletter, and our Green Sanctuary page for upcoming Green Sanctuary events.
Friends of Orange County Detainees
FOCD, formerly Friends of Orange County Detainees, began here at Tapestry in 2012. Our original mission was to offer regular visits to any undocumented detainee who indicated a need and/or a transfer program from point of release to detainee’s sponsor for asylum seekers.
While Covid-19 has necessitated that we suspend in-person visits until it is safe to go back to detention centers, we continue to offer listening ears and compassionate hearts in an act of friendship to end isolation and affirm each person's human dignity and worth. We are currently doing this through letter writing and phone calls. We would love to have you join us.
To learn more about FOCD or to become a volunteer, please visit the FOCD website.
New Beginnings
New Beginnings is a group of volunteers from Tapestry and three other Orange County churches whose goal is to welcome refugee families from Afghanistan and help them adjust to life in America. We do this by addressing their needs for residency status, housing, food, transportation, healthcare, employment…and friendship. You can pick from a variety of tasks and needs from taking someone to go shopping for groceries or to a doctor appointment to more involved tasks like apartment hunting, applying for a job or just navigating life in Orange County.
If you’d like to find out more, contact Bev Huff at bevhuff@cox.net or Scott Westerfield at scott.ed@cox.net for more details.
Partners
We also join in various projects with other Unitarian Universalist organizations, e.g., Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA), Unitarian Universalist Service Committee (UUSC), Unitarian Universalist Legislative Ministry (UULM) and Pacific Southwest District (PSWD), and other organizations involved in social action.
Some of the links to these organizations and others are as follows:
