The Gathering At Northern Hills

Community Outreach

We covenant to the collective Unitarian Universalist values of justice, generosity, and equity. The Gathering at Northern Hills (GNH) is committed to supporting homeless youth through these organizations with donations and personal participation. These social outreach activities are coordinated by our Women’s Action Network (WAN)

Lighthouse Sheakley Center for Youth

Lighthouse offers shelter to young adults ages 18-24 who are motivated to move from homelessness to safe and stable housing, where they learn self-reliance and life skills. The end goal is to guide young people off the streets and into secure housing.

*Second Wednesday of each month, members of GNH prepare and serve lunch to the residents of Sheakley Center. This activity is led by Cheryl Leksan. cherylleksan@yahoo.com

*The GNH Hygiene Kit Project provides much needed personal hygiene items to the clients housed at the Sheakley Center. In addition, their Outreach Team will distribute some to other homeless youth on the streets in the Cincinnati area. Our volunteers assemble personal hygiene kits several times a year. They are prepared in a zip-lock bag to contain body wash, deodorant, hand sanitizer, toothbrush, toothpaste, band-aids, alcohol swabs and Q-tips.

The mission of Valley Interfaith is to partner with the community to provide
necessary resources and build sulf-sustainability. By doing so, it strives to reduce the risk of hunger, crisis, and harm/victimization many of the most vulnerable community members face.

Valley Interfaith Community Resource Center is a food pantry that also assists with clothing, emergency eviction, utility shutoff prevention, and numerous programs throughout the year. Volunteers are always needed to work in the pantry, the front desk, clothing sorting, and other tasks.

Upspring is dedicated to serving the educational needs of children experiencing homelessness. Racial and economic equity are at the forefront of all Upspring programs. It is removing barriers in education, so that the children it serves have the same opportunities as their peers to become well-rounded participants in society and end the cycle of poverty and homelessness.

Social Justice

Our spiritual lives are inseparable from the struggle for equal access to food, clean air and water, housing, education, employment, health care, and legal defense as well as respect for the rights of women, people of color, immigrants, religious minorities and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered humanity. This is based on our belief in inherent worth and dignity of every human being–without exceptions–and in the interdependent web of life. Working for justice is therefore as much a spiritual practice as prayer and meditation.

Justice is a ministry of the Gathering at Northern Hills and is the unified work of the Board of Trustees, teams,  members, friends and staff. We will boldly engage the justice issues of the day and will provide church members ample opportunities for public witness of their faith.

You may not be poor or powerless or denied a privileged life in other ways but working for a just world is the responsibility of all of us. Also, to paraphrase Mother Teresa, it’s better to light a small candle than curse all the darkness in the world. We hope you will join hands with us as we work on creating a peaceful and just society.

Come, sing a song with me,
Come, dream a dream with me,
Come, walk in rain with me,
Come, share a rose with me,
That I might know your mind.
And I’ll bring you hope,
When hope is hard to find,
And I’ll bring a song of love,
and a rose in the winter time.
From #346 in the new UU supplemental
hymnal, “Singing the Living Tradition”