Building Solidarity: Everyone Needs a HUUB

These are difficult times, but especially in a city like Orange, where the majority of the population is black, there are lots of immigrants, and violence is taking a deadly toll.  For our congregation, which has been in Orange for 125 years, it is urgent that we use our UU principles to become part of the solution.  We created The HUUB, which manages our campus as a center for neighborhood and community life. 

We are raising money to:

1. Support our Community Listening and HUUB Fellows' Projects,
2. Document our successes and share our stories with our community, and
3. Make our campus safe and secure as we open our doors and welcome our neighbors into our spaces.

Since we opened our doors to the city, we've: 

• hosted many kinds of community events, from the funeral repast for a young victim of violence to mayoral debates;

• helped to make Orange a "welcoming city";

• developed programs for asset-based community recovery;

• organized mini-grants to neighborhood groups; and

• started the process to put our buildings back in shape.  

This exciting work helped energize the congregation and the city around us. We are part of the change we want to see in the world. We need your help.

We will continue our asset-based programming by supporting and expanding our Community Listening Project and HUUB Fellows program. Our Fellows projects include monthly Solidarity Potlucks, Don't Drop the Mic artist showcases, and the Kiatud After School Art Club. We'll bring on a third cohort of Fellows this summer.

With all this activity, we need to better document the things happening in our space and share these stories with our neighbors, inviting them to join us and inspiring them to use our space for their needs. We are hiring a Communications Coordinator to document and promote these activites while also redoing our website to better facilitate and share it all.

Additionally, we need to invest in the routine maintenance and improvements to make sure our buildings are safe and sound for the people using them. The improvements this campaign supports include a Fire & Smoke alarm system as well as a Security system.

The people who live in Orange, NJ, like those in so many of America's small cities, have suffered from the effects of decades of disinvestment and marginalization. Communites are only as healthy as the people living in them and only as strong as the social fabric that holds them together. Almost all the large institutions that helped provide stability, through jobs, services, or social and cultural activites, have closed down, leaving a vaccuum of resources that provide opportunities for people to come together in community.

The First UU and The HUUB are working to turn our campus into a center of activity in the city, built around Unitarian Universalist (UU) principles and advancing social justice. Our mission is to be a public space giving life to the UU values of strengthening democracy, building community, and respecting the worth and dignity of every person. We have opened the church doors, offering our buildings as a resource for individuals, groups, organizations, and institutions in Orange to work together to make it a healthier, happier, and more just city. We are developing a network of partners and allies and bringing them together under our roof, encouraging our larger community to build coalitions, embrace one another’s differences, and work towards spiritual growth.

Check out what's been going on at The HUUB on our Facebook page - www.facebook.com/OrangeHUUB