The Encanto Kennel Club will hold the third annual EKC Dog Show and Pet Parade at 10:00 a.m., Saturday September 10, 2022, in the Encanto Community Church Fellowship Hall. It will feature music, beverages, treats, and a unique disdain of formality. The event celebrates all well-behaved pets and pet owners, and it will feature the crowning of the 2022 EKC Best in Show.
Other awards will include:
Best Lap Dog & Couch Potato
Best Belly Rubbee
Most Extravagant Welcome
Best Wiggle Butt
Best Walking Companion
The Zoe Memorial Smile Award
Jasmine McGee (managing attorney, New Mexico Immigrant Law Center) and Sophia Genovese (asylum/detention senior attorney, New Mexico Immigrant Law Center) – will speak on Sunday, Sept. 11 at 3:00pm at a Zoom forum on immigration courts and the case for reform of these courts. The event is sponsored by the Immigration Justice Team at First Congregational Church/ Albuquerque(UCC). The FCUCC Zoom link for this forum is: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86942633430?pwd=TVRrY3F6eVZFOE1hWHdWY1JaV04wZz09
All asylum seekers will have to make their cases for asylum in immigration courts. The percentage of asylum seekers who are actually granted asylum by these courts is horribly low. This forum will help us to understand why that is the case, and what we can do to advocate for a fairer immigration court system.
Because of Prop 300, passed in 2006 by Arizona voters, Dreamers are required to pay out-of-state tuition at community colleges and state universities in Arizona. The costs are prohibitive. While their American citizen classmates pay about $300 for a 3-credit community college class, Dreamers pay three times as much, or $1000.
Last fall, First Church Phoenix Immigration Task Force members delivered tuition checks to three Maricopa Community Colleges on behalf of Dreamers attending five different Phoenix Union high schools. These checks covered the costs of dual credit classes for a unique group of PUHSD students — Dreamers — who came to Arizona as young children with their undocumented parents. Last year, First Church supported 15 students and they hope to do the same this year.
From left: The Revs. Peter Wiley, Karen Georgia Thompson, Janet Ross and John Dorhauer gather around the Amistad pulpit.
The pulpit from the Amistad Chapel, which closed when the UCC moved its national offices, is headed to a place with a history of fighting slavery. The Rev. Peter Wiley, senior pastor of First Congregational Church, UCC, of Hudson, Ohio, stopped by the new UCC offices Aug. 24 to pick up the pulpit. He told a small group gathered in the UCC welcoming area at 1300 E. 9th Street about the church’s abolitionist history, which he hopes will connect well with the Amistad heritage the pulpit represents.
On September 11, Shadow Rock UCC will be welcoming congregants and leaders from First UCC Flagstaff. Shadow Rock will walk with them as they grieve and look to the future after the closure of their worshipping congregation on September 25.
Church of the Palms had 23 different volunteers assist with their IHELP program in July. Volunteers drove the bus, provided showers, prepared meals including dinner, breakfast and a sack lunch, and served as monitors through the night. Others served the meals, cleaned the kitchen and laundered the towels and bedding. The 23 different volunteers worked 208 hours in July. That is the equivalent of 5-40 hour weeks and an additional day. These 208 hours were expended within 4 Monday nights in July. In the summer they begin at 1:00 p.m. on Monday afternoon to provide a cooling center for relief from the hottest part of the day. After breakfast on Tuesday morning, guests are taken to the Surprise Resource Center.
Thank you to all the Churches around the Conference that collected school supplies for a variety of agencies and schools. I just picked one to highlight. Collected supplies from the Church of the Painted Hills School Supply Drive were all delivered to Tolson Elementary School by Connie B and Nancy T.
Desert Palm has supported Gathering Humanity for several years, a Tempe organization that sets up apartments for immigrants moving to the Phoenix area. The people served by this incredible organization have been through horrors that we cannot imagine. They have come to the US and are in the process of fulfilling all the requirements to become citizens. These families only have one hope, to call some community in the United States ‘home.’ Gathering Humanity collects furniture and household items to set up small apartments, meeting the needs of specific families moving to Phoenix from countries all over the world. Desert Palm members have helped set up apartments, worked at the warehouse, and donated items and dollars to this organization.
Shepherd of the Hills also has a connection to Gathering Humanity! They will host the bi-annual “Refugee Baby Shower” through Gathering Humanity - a local NGO that helps support newly arrived refugees, asylum seekers and adults transitioning from foster care into their own homes. The Refugee Baby Shower will be held on Saturday, Oct 8 in the Fellowship Hall, helping 16 refugee pregnant moms with everything needed for their baby. The day will include special talks for the moms (financial, social worker and Planned Parenthood), shopping spaces (clothing, books, toys....), a donated lunch and a special dessert! The soon to be moms will be coming with a sponsor that will help them navigate.