Volunteers, Non-Profits, Crafts Vendors Needed! The 21st Annual Peace Fair of Bucks Quarterly Meeting will take place on Saturday, September 18, 2021, at Buckingham Friends Meetinghouse in Lahaska, just south of Peddlers Village. Up to 100 booths of local crafts, artwork, food, games, animals and Bucks area non-profits whose focus is peace, community service, healthy living and the environment. Browse the book sale and listen to entertainers like the Tookany Creek bluegrass band, River Drivers and kids’ songster Ecoman. Hear Bucks and Montgomery County poet laureates at the Poetry Reading or tour the Buckingham Quaker Meetinghouse, a National Landmark. The fair runs from 10:30am until 4:00pm and is handicap accessible. The suggested donation is $2 and parking is free. Local residents from toddlers to seniors will enjoy a delightful, engaging and uplifting day among the giant oaks and maples at the Peace Fair.
Peace and Social Action
COVID: A Day of Remembrance
On Friday, August 20, between 8-8:20 PM, Friends will gather outside their meetinghouses – or at their homes – for a silent, candlelight vigil during which we will remember the many ways we as individuals and a community were impacted by the COVID pandemic. This includes sorrows and joys, hardships and sharing, isolation and fellowship. We will be linked during the 20 minutes by Zoom. Meetings may wish to add a dinner or memorial-style meeting in advance of 8 PM, and invite others (such as the local Council of Churches) to join them. NOTE: Monthly Meetings and individuals participating from home are encouraged to pre-register in order to receive the Zoom link.
Let’s Talk About ‘How Can We Win?’
Author and activist Kimberly Jones went viral with a YouTube interview in which she asks, “How can we win?” Moorestown Friends Meeting’s Anti-Racism Committee recommends the interview highly; we’ll host a discussion of Jones’s perspective on race, protest, violence and economics for this Let’s Talk session on Thursday 22 July. Watch Jones’s seven-minute interview on YouTube – and maybe her 12-minute appearance on The Daily Show – then join us to discuss Jones’s ideas and our own perspectives; click here or phone 646-558-8656 and use meeting ID 815 8781 6369.
Let’s Talk About How the Word is Passed
Join Moorestown Friends Meeting’s Anti-Racism Committee for a discussion of Clint Smith’s new exploration of the roots and present-day impact of the U.S.A.’s slave economy of the 17th-19th centuries. An ‘instant #1 New York Times bestseller,’ the book is widely available. If you’re not able to read or listen to it before the meeting, Little, Brown’s website has some excerpts; and The Atlantic has a short, valuable adaption. Please join us to help support the important work our meeting is doing in witness to our testament of equality; click here or phone 646-558-8656 and use meeting ID 873 3565 8140.
Let’s Talk About Juneteenth
Burlington County college students and activists Ashlynn Conley and Jasmine Cartwright-Atkins join Moorestown F/friends to discuss Juneteenth, a celebration of emancipation in the U.S. Jasmine and Ashlynn will tell us something about the beginnings of this holiday, when many enslaved people in Texas first learned, on June 19, 1865, of the Emancipation Proclamation, almost three years after it officially ended legal enslavement. They will also discuss their plans for a second annual Juneteenth celebration at the Perkins Center in Moorestown on Saturday, June 19. All are welcome to join the conversation at 7:30pm on Thursday 10 June; click here or phone 646-558-8656 and use meeting ID 815 8781 6369.
Let’s Talk with Matthew van Meter
Following on our April 22 ‘Let’s Talk About Deep Delta Justice’ session, Moorestown Friends Meeting’s Anti-Racism Committee welcomes our member Matthew van Meter to continue the conversation of his compelling book, the historic Supreme Court case Duncan v. Louisiana, and its implications for anti-racism efforts today. The book is available through Pendle Hill and numerous other outlets. Click here to join the discussion, or phone 646-558-8656 and use meeting ID 815 8781 6369.
Alternatives to Violence Project Basic Workshop
Have you curiosity about increasing your skills in peaceful living and practicing effective transformation of conflict for yourself and others? I invite you to check the Alternatives to Violence Project website www.avpusa.org and to sign up for a series of sessions composing the basic level of the Alternatives to Violence Project. Since South Central Penn AVP facilitators are holding our first virtual workshop, we want to break up our usual two consecutive days-long workshop into six 3-hour sessions. We will hold the sessions on Friday evening and Saturday morning (to accommodate work schedules) over 3 consecutive weeks.
The attached invitation lists the dates beginning Fri. May 7 and ending Sat. May 22. We plan to have a generous sprinkling of breaks and what we call Light and Livelies to recharge energy and relieve sitting. We will begin with some basic tips for using tools on the zoom platform such as “chat,” name change, mute/unmute functions, so that you are comfortable participating. Our IT guy will be ever present and happy to assist.
Since it is our fledgling virtual meeting, we are scheduling the first 20 participants who express interest in signing up. Those others who respond after the first 20 will be on the waitlist. If the workshop is full, those on the waitlist will be notified of a subsequent Basic Workshop. We will send a link to the May workshop at the end of April.
We are suggesting a donation of $50 for the 6 sessions (or we invite you to pay what works for you).
A Brief Introduction to Black History
Haddonfield Quarterly Meeting will include a presentation on Black History, featuring Dr. Teresa Nance. Friends are invited to participate, with worship starting at 10 AM, followed by the program at 11 AM.
Nance is currently serving as the Vice President for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, and Chief Diversity Officer at Villanova University. Her office has launched a new campaign called Living Race—Transforming Community that focuses on organizational systemic change and high-impact community engagement to facilitate opportunities for Black and minoritized students, staff and faculty to succeed and thrive within the University. She has ties with both Swarthmore and Central Philadelphia Monthly Meetings. Please see the PYM Stories about Dr. Nance for additional information.
Pre-registration is required; zoom information will be sent on Saturday, 4/24 to those who have pre-registered. Link: https://www.southjerseyquakers.org/quarterly-mtg-4-25/
Broadcast of Must See Documentary Dawnland 11-5-18 @ 10 PBS
Greetings from the Indian Committee
We want you to be aware of on MONDAY NOVEMBER 5th 10PM PBS will broadcast DAWNLAND
Our friends Wayne Newell and Denise Altvater (AFSC WABANAKI) are among those featured. See link below.
Thanks to Elizabeth Koopman
About the Film
They were forced to assimilate into white society: children ripped away from their families, depriving them of their culture and erasing their identities. Can reconciliation help heal the scars from childhoods lost? Dawnland is the untold story of Indigenous child removal in the US through the nation’s first-ever government-endorsed truth and reconciliation commission, which investigated the devastating impact of Maine’s child welfare practices on the Wabanaki people.
PS Learn the Lenape Language online! http://talk-lenape.org/getting-started
Green Street Meeting provides school supplies to children at EMIR Healing Center
Green Street Meeting’s EMIR Ministry Support Group says a heartfelt “Thank you!” to everyone at Green Street, the meetings in Philadelphia Quarter, and beyond who supported our school supplies drive in summer 2018.
The drive benefited 103 children whose families had lost a loved one to homicide, and who received services and support from the EMIR Healing Center. The center was founded by our member Victoria Greene, and named in memory of her son Emir, who was murdered. The name also makes the statement “Every Murder Is Real.” No matter who the victim was, or how much or little attention the crime received, that person’s loved ones are mourning their loss for years afterwards.
Still going strong in Philadelphia’s Germantown neighborhood, after 19 years, the EMIR Healing Center continues to help families survive and eventually heal from the pain of losing a loved one to homicide.
Friends from Green Street Meeting formed the EMIR Ministry Support Group in early 2018. We use the Quaker Social Change Ministry model, developed by American Friends Service Committee (especially Green Street member Lucy Duncan). In this model, a group of Quakers partner with a local organization led by people most impacted by a particular issue. The Quaker group follows their lead in deciding what to work on. The model also makes time for spiritual sharing, connection, and reflection, leading to deeper relationship, followership, and grounding of action.
Victoria asked our group at Green Street to organize a drive to provide backpacks with school supplies to the children EMIR serves. When a parent is mourning a murdered family member, whether it be a brother, sister, parent, or child, it can be very hard for them to keep things together for the rest of the family. They may be depressed and overwhelmed, and not as able to track things like school start dates and supply lists. They may lose income or even their job.
Our ministry support group got organized in the spring, asked the Meeting to take us under their care, and then spent the summer campaigning and publicizing the drive. An online buying service was set up so supporters could buy things and have them shipped directly to EMIR. (See this PYM news story from May 2018.)
With a couple of weeks to go before our deadline, we had 51 backpacks, toward our goal of 85. And then we found out there were 103 kids served by EMIR! With God’s abundance, people came through. We had enough to serve every child. We raised about $1,750 in donations, which enabled us to fill gaps in what was bought online or contributed in person.
The week before school started, we gave away 103 backpacks with school supplies in them at the EMIR office. The little children in particular were overjoyed. There were even a few backpacks left over, in case other children have a need.
Victoria said it was a great success and thanked our support group for doing the project and everyone who contributed supplies, funds, or time.
To everyone who purchased supplies online, dropped off supplies directly at the Meetinghouse or at the EMIR office, or made a donation, THANK YOU!
– Chris Mohr, support group convenor
Photo: Victoria Greene, member of Green Street Meeting and founder of EMIR Healing Center, with a box used to collect school supplies. Learn more about EMIR at emirphilly.org.