Connect with Us! On the Web:JUUstice WashingtonLegislative Advocacy2022 Issue SummitsOn Facebook: 2022 Legislative Summit is coming very soon! Time is moving quickly and the Washington State Legislature will be moving into high gear soon! This is a short session this year so we’ll have a lot of work to do in a shorter period of time. Join us as we continue creating justice through our legislature! Part I – Legislative Panel: January 7, 2022 7:00 – 9:00 pm We will review the status of last year’s legislative efforts and look to what’s on the agenda for this year with legislators. Bring your questions, ideas and notepads and prepare for supporting and opposing critical justice legislation. Part II – Strategy Session: January 8, 2022 • 9:00 am – 12:00 pm JUUstice Washington has joined the Take Action Network (TAN) that reports legislative developments and recommends and facilitate taking justice actions. Learn about TAN, how to join it, and how to use the system to track legislation, take action, and keep up to date on hearings and information meetings during the legislative session. Justice issue groups will be organized and begin mapping out how to respond to proposed legislation. Take a glance at the prefiled legislation here and revisit the Washington State Legislature website. Register NOW! Suggested donation: $25 or offer a scholarship. No one turned away for lack of funds. Hope to see you all there and looking forward to working with you all this session! JUUstice WashingtonYour support is needed and always appreciated!Please Donate! Deb Cruz, President, JUUstWA JUUstice Washington https://JUUstwa.org Reach us at: office@juustwa.org
Now that we have begun having Sunday worship services in person again, we are also providing childcare for those that need it. In addition to our Nursery and Preschool Coordinator, Jen Ikeda, we are adding two childcare provider positions. The childcare providers will need to commit to at least two Sunday mornings per month from 9:30-11:30 a.m. Additional hours may be available for childcare during church meetings and events throughout the year.
A copy of the job description can be found here. If you are interested in applying, please contact me. Feel free to share the information with others who might be interested as well.
Please let Bridget Laflin know if you have any questions.
Join us on Saturday, Jan. 15, 2022 at 7 p.m. for a meeting of the WUUC Nonfiction Book Club, hosted by Alaine Davis and Lane Owsley. We will be discussing Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law by Mary Roach. We plan to meet in person and have dinner together. Vaccinated guests only, please. RSVP to Alaine <alaine.davis@yahoo.com>.
What’s to be done about a jaywalking moose? A bear caught breaking and entering? A murderous tree? Three hundred years ago, animals that broke the law would be assigned legal representation and put on trial. The answers are best found not in jurisprudence but in science: the curious science of human-wildlife conflict, a discipline at the crossroads of human behavior and wildlife biology.
Roach tags along with animal-attack forensics investigators, human-elephant conflict specialists, bear managers, and “danger tree” faller blasters. Intrepid as ever, she travels from leopard-terrorized hamlets in the Indian Himalaya to St. Peter’s Square in the early hours before the pope arrives for Easter Mass, when vandal gulls swoop in to destroy the elaborate floral display. She taste-tests rat bait, learns how to install a vulture effigy, and gets mugged by a macaque.
Combining little-known forensic science and conservation genetics with a motley cast of laser scarecrows, langur impersonators, and trespassing squirrels, Roach reveals as much about humanity as about nature’s lawbreakers. When it comes to “problem” wildlife, she finds, humans are more often the problem—and the solution. Fascinating, witty, and humane, Fuzz offers hope for compassionate coexistence in our ever-expanding human habitat.
(Modified from Goodreads)
Four times a year, the WUUC Book Discussion Group gathers to read and talk about a nonfiction book. You only attend the meetings about books that interest you, so we end up with a different group of participants every time. We meet to connect and talk about a book in depth. Anyone is welcome to suggest a book and/or lead a discussion. Contact Alaine to RSVP, suggest a book, or offer to host a future discussion.
My name is Jaime Holthuysen. I am a real estate broker and adjunct professor of anthropology. I wanted to share my experience volunteering last year at the start of the pandemic.
In March 2020, I had a heart-wrenching conversation with a good friend who was a doctor helping Covid patients. She was simply overwhelmed. There was such a shortage of masks they had to resort to reusing ‘sanitized’ paper masks. At the same time a local woman in Woodinville had started printing 3D face shields and needed help organizing and delivering supplies and masks to medical facilities that were in dire need of protective gear.
We formed a small group, a core team of organizers and began asking for volunteers. This rapidly grew to hundreds of people producing 3D printed masks in their basements and garages, and nearly 100 volunteer drivers. We established distribution hubs and sought out support from large companies such as Amazon and Microsoft. Our designs were NIH approved, our core team was led by doctors and engineers but also firefighters, stay-at-home moms and people from a variety of backgrounds. We became a 503C non-profit. Our goal was to provide face shields until supply could catch up with demand.
My role was in organizing supply chain and distribution. Our operation lasted several months. There were many late nights and countless numbers of hours volunteered by our community. In the end, we distributed over 500,000 face shields, $1.5 million worth of free protective gear nationwide to frontline medical providers, senior homes, homeless shelters, First Nations reservations, and to local protests supporting Black Lives Matter.
I share this because it is a story of community and what can be accomplished when people care about others. In my work as a real estate broker and professor, my motivation has always been to support others in achieving their goals. It was a privilege to have been a part of this, seeing the immense dedication and the incredible result of such mobilization.
I firmly believe that change can be made standing together, uplifting each other, and supporting each other. 2020 was a year of hardship, loss, and struggle. It was also a year that demonstrated how, together, we have the infinite capacity to make change through our compassion and humanity.
