Our youth group travelers are heading to GA this week!
Fresh faced and mostly excited, ten of our high schoolers piled into vans with their four chaperone/sponsors Wednesday morning, headed to Baltimore, MD to attend UUA’s annual General Assembly (GA). We expect they’ll have a good time exploring the wider world of our active, liberal religion with other youth and UUs of all ages. Over the course of this 5-day immersive event, there are engaging workshops & speakers; inspirational worship services; UU business & voting; connection-building within identity groups and with UUs of all backgrounds; spiritual nourishment; justice learning & action; music; games and fun; and more! Additionally, our youth group has signed on to help lead the youth-focused Synergy Worship Service happening at GA on Friday. We hope all Asheville attendees will come to support our and all UU youth!
General Assembly is a time for connection, growth, and reflection and can be a rich, profound experience. GA is a space to explore personal and shared UU values and to go deeper in community. What does it mean to be a Unitarian Universalist? How do we live out our values? What does democracy look like in action? This is the first time since 2018 that our youth group is participating.
The youth group and their parents (and others!) have been working together all year to bring this trip experience to fruition. THANK YOU to all of our Soup Sunday and pancake breakfast “customers,” Parents’ Night Out attendees, Faithify and other donors, to congregation groups and committees for shared work and revenue, and to the UUA/GA for several scholarships to help reduce the family cost.
GA attracts more than 3,000 folx from over 1,000 UU congregations, and we are proudly in that number! In addition to our youth group of 14, UU Asheville has more attendees: Rev. Audette, Kim Collins, Mary Alm, Susan Foster, Rob Fulson, and Jody Malloy are attending in Baltimore while Rev. Claudia, Matt Farris, Bernise Lynch, and Mara Sprain are participating in GA business and more virtually. (Note: this may be an incomplete list.) Ask them all about it next week!
Jen Johnson, Religious Educator