Eva Paxton is a member of Wicomico River Friends Meeting in Salisbury, Maryland, and is helping host the Learning for Life – A Religious Education Thread Gathering this Saturday on January 24 at her meetinghouse. She began attending Friends meeting about three years ago, and she has been building a First-day school program at Wicomico River Meeting.
“When I first went and looked for a meeting to attend about three years ago, there was no youth program going at Wicomico River Friends Meeting,” Eva said. “So I started bringing my kids to Third Haven, which is about an hour away.”
Eva said a Friend who leads First-day school at Third Haven, helped her start a First-day school program at Wicomico River. “First it was just my two kids,” she said. “I would sit for 15 minutes and then go out with my two kids.”
Eva said. “There’s only what, we have like 10 members,” she said. “Very often it’s just like eight people at meeting, but now we have kids and young families coming, and that hasn’t happened for a long time.”
The thread gathering will take place this Saturday, January 24, 2026, from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. Friends will gather at the same time at three regional locations: Haverford Friends Meeting in Haverford, Pennsylvania; Unami Meeting in Pennsburg, Pennsylvania; and Wicomico River Friends Meeting in Salisbury, Maryland.
When Eva looked at the planned conversation circles, one topic stood out. “Integrating youth into the life of the meeting,” she said. “That will be really interesting, because that’s something that we’ve been working on, and that also seems to be a common thread across the meetings.”
Eva said geography matters in Southern Quarter. “There’s not that many opportunities down here,” she said. “I’m hoping that everyone from our quarterly meeting will attend and recognize that it’s an opportunity to connect with folks from the yearly meeting, from the quarterly meeting, and have this opportunity for religious education, without having to travel.”
Friends can still register for the thread gathering by following this link: https://www.pym.org/event/winter-thread-gathering-2026/
Photo collage from previous PYM events
