Dear UU Schenectady~

It has been quite a week. As many of you have already heard, last Sunday evening there was a fire in a work room in the basement of the church building. A fire crew who had been out on a call drove past the church, saw smoke, and stopped and put out the fire. No one was onsite at the time, and no one was hurt, The fire was contained to mostly one room, although smoke permeated the entire building.

We are working with the insurance company to create a plan for dealing with the charred mess as well as a mitigation company to clean, repair, and/or replace contents throughout the entire building. This restoration work will take a long while. The priorities are to restore electricity so that work can begin, and to tend to the apartment where our custodians, Helen and Ed, live.

Thank you Alison Dubray who alerted us to the Fire Call, to Susan Marino and her husband Rob, Sara Meixner and Dan Leonard who all came to the building Sunday night. Thank you to Randy Jennings who moved the blueprints and placed a temporary door for the apartment to prevent further contamination.

Along with expressions of concern and care, we are grateful for the offers of help. Right now, there isn’t work that volunteers can do, but there are ways to help. Your presence and participation matter now, more than ever. Attend worship when you can. Sign up to be in a Covenant Group. Consider helping with the Religious Education program. Let us know if you’d like to be part of the Caring Team, because caring for one another is so important right now, and it takes extra time when we can’t see one another at church, or have time to check in as kids run around the Great Hall or play in the garden after religious education.

We will need a small group of volunteers soon to begin the work of doing inventory. If you are a really detailed person and have legible handwriting, contact Rev. Wendy to learn more, at revwendy@uuschenectady.org. For now, we hope that you are able to enjoy this beautiful first day of Autumn. May the Equinox invite us to notice how we move in and out of balance.

With care, and in faith~

Rev. Lynn and Rev. Wendy