Dear WUUC community,

Our director of Religious Education, Skylar Hopkins, who aspires to be a professional educator, will be pursuing her own education in support of that vocational goal. She has been accepted at Western Washington University, where she will work toward a degree in Education.

Congratulations Skylar!

However, Skylar’s move to Bellingham to attend school means that her time as our Director of Religious Education is coming to an end. Her last day with us here at Woodinville UU Church will be July 31, 2023.

Skylar writes:

Dear Community,

I am saddened to say that my time serving WUUC will be shorter than I anticipated. It has been a pleasure and an honor working with you and I thank you for allowing me the opportunity to make a difference in your children’s lives. This has felt like the perfect start to my future career as a teacher and solidified for me just how much I love working with children. WUUC has been a home to me for the past twenty years and I hope that I have fostered that same sense of community in your kids. I hope they continue to enjoy church and that it continues to be a safe space for them for many years. I thank you again for this opportunity, and I’ll leave you with the words of one of my favorite camp songs sung at our UU youth cons, “this is goodnight and not goodbye.”

As someone who grew up at WUUC, and now having served as our DRE, Skylar will always have a special place here in our community. We are grateful for her efforts this year to begin rebuilding a new RE program in our first year back in person after going virtual during the pandemic. That’s not an easy thing to do, and we were lucky to have someone who brought so much ingenuity, dedication, and enthusiasm to her role during her time here as DRE. We are sorry to see Skylar go, and we will miss her!

We will formally honor and thank Skylar at a future Sunday service (date TBD). In the meantime, Skylar will be working with me (Rev. Dan) and church leadership and volunteers to help us set up our RE program so that it can continue into the future. So in the next three months, please feel free to express your gratitude and wish Skylar well when you see her at church!

With heartfelt gratitude,

Rev. Dan