Sunday, March 25, 12-1 PM: Sandwich making for homeless people in Oakland. Join Pastor Laurie, Shaun Bernhardt, music director Benjamin & his boys here at Skyline in the preschool classroom area for sandwich making for people who are hungry. A group of us will deliver these to a local encampment from 1 – 2 pm. All ages & all are welcome to join us for one or both activities. Bring your sandwich making supplies! Contact Pastor Laurie.
Archive for Community – Page 5
Dear Friends, Colleagues and Collaborators,
Good afternoon! I’m writing to invite you to join us for the Faith Alliance for a Moral Economy’s annual retreat, scheduled for Thursday, March 1, 9am to 12noon at Skyline UCC (12540 Skyline Blvd in Oakland).
We welcome our extended family of faith leaders to this morning session, whose featured speakers will focus on where we stand a year into the present national crisis, and what lies ahead in our work for 2018 and beyond.
This session will also be an opportunity to learn about FAME’s work in collaboration with the national Poor Peoples’ Campaign (PPC) called for by Rev. Dr. William Barber, and how you and your communities can connect with the Campaign’s call for Forty Days of Direct Action beginning in May.
We also encourage you to bring colleagues, congregants and friends to this morning session, so that we can continue to share more broadly the crucial connections between our faith traditions and the call to economic and racial justice.
Please RSVP directly to me, David Brazil, so we can be sure and include you in the count for lunch! And of course please let me know if you have any questions.
With blessings and best wishes — David
—
David Brazil, Program Coordinator, Faith Alliance for a Moral Economy
office : 510.893.7106, extension 315
cell: 510.508.7104
email: [email protected]
Featuring: Cantori, a an acclaimed after-school training choir for the Grammy Award winning Pacific Boychoir Academy Troubadours –http://www.pacificboychoir.org/choir.
Sunday, March 18, 2018 @ 10 a.m.
At Skyline Community Church, UCC
Come to listen to these young people’s beautiful music with a soaring view of the Oakland Hills to Mt. Diablo as a backdrop. The concert is in the midst of and following a special abbreviated service. Chocolate protein bars given to singers and the first 20 children in attendance. The first 80 adults receive a novelty mini-carnation.
Would you let a friend know about this?
Free will offering to support the homeless in Oakland, including St Vincent de Paul & St Mary’s.
Co- sponsored by the Interfaith Council of Alameda County (ICAC)
If you can help by donating food or money, please contact the office (510-531-8212 [email protected])
See you there and bring a friend!
Donors: Trader Joe’s, Skyline Church UCC
Dust and Ashes
Create in me, a clean heart, that I may live, aware of the gift.
Feb 14th at 7 – 7:30 pm @skylineucc.org
A brief service with Pastor Laurie and Music Director Benjamin Mertz.
The Gift of Mortality
Meditation, Taize music, prayers, ashes, candlelight
From Pastor Laurie:
News outlets from the New York Times to Mother Jones Magazine have praised the leadership of California at the November UN climate summit in Paris. The LA Times portrayed Governor Jerry Brown’s active presence in Paris as representing not only the crafting of his “political legacy” but also his preoccupation with preventing “catastrophe.”
Yet environmental lawyers, community activists, and faith leaders are increasingly bringing to the public’s awareness what has long been California’s dirty secret. In a state known for its environmentalism, environmental racism has remained a festering, unbridled sin.
Environmental racism is the placement of low-income or minority communities in close proximity of environmentally hazardous or degraded environments such as toxic waste, pollution and urban decay.
Skyline Community Church UCC in Oakland has been active in struggles against environmental racism here in California, particularly with respect to fracking and the proposed coal terminal in Oakland.
In November, Nancy Taylor of our Green Team and I joined together with an interfaith coalition to deliver a letter to Brown that called for a halt to fracking.
On Tuesday, Feb 9, 2016, several members of our Green Team joined me as I addressed an interfaith rally outside Oakland’s City Hall in seeking to delay consultant work that could bring the city closer to having a coal terminal. Becky Taylor, a former Oakland Port Commissioner and a member of Skyline’s Green Team and I spoke at the City Council meeting against coal. In my remarks, I spoke of the pride I feel about Governor Brown’s environmental leadership in Paris, but then asked, “Why would we want to be complicit in prolonging and accelerating this environmental and humanitarian health crisis?”
The combined will, wisdom, voice and energy of the interfaith community of Oakland, its people, and prayers resulted in the City Council voting to delay the opening a coal terminal in Oakland!
Skyline is a small but mighty force for environmental justice here in Oakland! Thank you Skyline!!
Here are a few articles that reference our good work!
http://www.ucc.org/californias_dirty_secret_comes_to_light
To Skyline Community from Steve Kilgore:
I brought $3,630 (the balance of the Sierra Leone fund) with me to Sentho in Sierra Leone when I went in January. We made a trip to Makomray and met with the school and village leaders. The new 2 classroom building for the preschoolers is close to be being done. See photo. The floors still need to be cemented and furniture is needed for one of the classrooms (the youngest children can use mats).
The other classrooms have had an issue with bat guano spoiling the ceiling and many ceiling tiles will need to be replaced along with mitigation to prevent further bat problems. There is also a need to do repaint some of the classrooms. Sentho plans to return to the village soon and get input on what specifically the community wants done with the current $$. She’s holding it for now and will report back to us once the decisions are made on how the money is spent.
We showed up during a school day. It was encouraging that there were many students and the teachers and principal were present. Neither of us were impressed by the apparent level of order and education that was going on. It’s not like we did an evaluation, but from appearances it didn’t appear a lot of learning was happening. I’m afraid the level of training of the staff combined with adequate supplies makes for a challenging learning environment for all. Some of the supplies we’ve sent in the past were there and are really valuable in such a poor community.
Anyway, we’ll hear more detail from Sentho in the coming months.
Steve Kilgore
From Sentho: Hello Everyone and greetings from Sierra Leone.
Yes, Steve gave me $3,640 and I still have the $$ (not yet exchanged to leones) with me. Again,I want to say many thanks to all, but especially to Marilyn, Kay and Rhea, Andre, Steve and everyone who participated in various ways in making a difference in my village. I will forever be grateful!!
The Head chief finally called last week and gave me an estimate of the materials (cement, cellotex, paint, boards, etc) needed for the work. It’s a lot more than I had expected and he himself said that, so I will have to reduce the quantity so there will be money left for the teachers and some school supplies. I’ll send details later after delivering the items and paying the teachers.
I am planning to travel to the village to take the materials some time soon (before they start their farm work) or else they will not do the work.
Greetings, peace, and many thanks to all.
Sentho
Note from Pastor Laurie:
Special thanks to Marilyn Shaw for the many years in which she organized bike ride fundraisers to help to fund this school and support the teachers. Especially now, as Sierra Leone continues to recover from Ebola we give thanks for Marilyn’s generous heart and commitment to the children of Makomray, and for the love and support of this community .
Statement by Rev. Laurie Manning, pastor of Skyline Church UCC-Oakland Hills, and UCC Northern California representative for Environmental Justice at the no-coal-in-Oakland press conference outside City Hall Tues, Feb 16, 2016:
We’re all familiar with “the Golden Rule.” It’s a universal principal, an ethic of reciprocity that teaches: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” “Love your neighbor as yourself.” It teaches us to care about our neighbors. Who doesn’t care about the kid down the street, or down the hill breathing dirty air?
As Flint Michigan reminds us, environmental toxins particularly impact poor children of color, globally, & locally. West Oakland has many parallels to Flint. (%90 black & Latino, where residents already experience high rates of poverty and unemployment).
This is a local health issue. The children of West Oakland are already contending with fumes & noise from the Port. We need to ask ourselves, what if it were our own children?
Now the proponents of the coal partnership in Oakland argue that it is bringing a $52 million investment and will bring almost $3 mill in annual property taxes and 2300 jobs.
But at what cost? What cost to the environment: excavating coal in Utah, transporting it here by rail, & shipping it by ocean to be burned in China? What cost to human lives in every step of the coal production process: the health risks to those most vulnerable; the miners in Utah; the residents of West Oakland; and those who breathe the air in China?
I’m so proud of Governor Brown, and his global leadership in environmental justice. Speaking out in Paris, and at 
Vatican, Governor Brown echoed the global scientific community’s unanimous pleas to leave 90% of fossil fuels in ground. Why would we want to be complicit in prolonging and accelerating this environmental and humanitarian health crisis?
Furthermore, besides the moral argument, there’s an economic argument. It’s a bad investment for Oakland. The demand for coal and the coal industry are rapidly failing. Why would Oakland want to invest, even in the short term, as major coal companies are going bankrupt? As Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize economist, has recently noted, “fossil fuels 
are the way of past, renewables are way in the future – if we care about the future, we care about switching.”http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/01/opinion/wind-sun-and-fire.html?_r=0
Finally, there’s the voice of the people. According to the recent Sierra Club survey, 76% of Oakland residents are against coal in the port.
Surely, there are healthier and safer long term sources of jobs and revenue that will benefit all of the people of Oakland.
There will be a press conference sponsored by several faith and environmental groups at 4:30. Then the vigil will be held from 5:00 – 6:00 pm at Oakland City Hall (Frank Ogawa Plaza). The Oakland City Council needs to hear from people of faith about our deep concern about the negative impacts on the health of our brothers and sisters in West Oakland if this proposed project proceeds. (See below for City Council members you can contact). For more information contact Rev Laurie Manning, [email protected].
Pastor Laurie’s statement on coal in Oakland.
Some organizations supporting this:
350BayArea.org http://www.350bayarea.org/coal-free_oakland_city_council_20160216
OccupyOakland.org https://occupyoakland.org/event/no-coal-in-oakland-city-council-meeting/
WHERE:
Frank Ogawa/Oscar Grant Plaza, in front of
Oakland City Hall. (1 Frank H. Ogawa Plaza)
WHAT CAN I DO?
City council members really need to know how the people that they represent feel about Coal so that they may take action and stop this disastrous plan. You can;
1. Sign the MoveOn petition to tell the city Council to stop Big Coal
2. Copy this email and send it to your neighborhood listserv if you live in Oakland. Otherwise, forward it to everyone you know in Oakland
3. Call and write Oakland city council members. Email is easy to ignore, a phone call isn’t. It doesn’t hurt to do both
Below is a brief script for calling and the text of a sample email. Feel free to personalize them.
To find your council district click here:
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District 1 Dan Kalb 238-7001 [email protected] |
District 5 Noel Gallo 238- 7005 [email protected] |
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District 2 Abel Guillen 238-7002 [email protected] |
District 6 Delsey Brooks 238-7006 [email protected] |
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District 3 Lynette Gibson McElhaney 238-7003 [email protected] |
District 7 Larry E. Reid 238-7007 |
|
District 4 Annie Campbell Washington 238-7004 |
At Large Rebecca Kaplan 238-7008 [email protected] |
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Mayor Libby Schaaf 238-3141 [email protected] |
Phone:
“Hi, My name is _____________ and I live and vote in your Council district. I’m concerned that the city of Oakland could become a terminal for shipping coal. West Oakland does not deserve the negative health and toxic environmental impacts of mile-long coal trains shedding coal dust. Coal must be prohibited from the new export terminal. I call on you as my city council representative to pass an ordinance banning coal on health and safety grounds.”
Thank you
Email:
Subject: Coal trains
Dear Mr./Ms./ council member,
My name is _____________ and I live and vote in your Council district. I’m concerned that the city of Oakland could become a terminal for shipping coal. West Oakland does not deserve the negative health and toxic environmental impacts of mile-long coal trains shedding coal dust. Coal must be prohibited from the new export terminal. I feel strongly that it would be a terrible mistake to expose our community to this toxic commodity. I call on you as my city council representative to pass an ordinance banning coal on health and safety grounds.”
Thank you
This action section was prepared by Heather MacLeod, Alameda Interfaith Climate Action Network (A-ICAN)
We recognize humanity’s impact on Earth and the urgent necessity to be stewards of God’s creation for the future of all beings.
We will promote awareness of our local and global environment, and work to reduce our environmental footprint in all Skyline activities:
worship
education
buildings and grounds
energy and water use
community service
our individual lives
