Small UUs press big campaign

UU World: The Magazine of the Unitarian Universalist Association, Sep/Oct 2004 by Skinner, Donald E

When the plans for a new building for the Universalist Unitarian Church in Peoria, Illinois, were presented to the congregation in the summer of 2003, Sarah Flintgruber, 10, noticed a problem. There was no playground.

So she did what any good Unitarian Universalist would do. She formed a committee. Well, not a committee, but a club-the UU Kids Playground Club, which got busy raising money. By May of this year it had raised $1,200 for the playground through various fundraisers.

Last fall the kids sold leaf-shaped pins. At Easter they made stained glass window art. One Sunday when the worship speaker came in character as Octave Chanute, an engineer who inspired Orville and Wilbur Wright, they sold paper airplanes for a dollar.

But the niftiest fundraiser has been the Playground Club's membership system itself. Dues are a dollar a week and include an official membership card. Anyone can join.

The club's "executive board" consists of Sarah, now n; her sister Anne, 4;Jon Offutt, 4;Will Offut, 8;Amelia Farlin Durrell, io;Anna Rosenberger, 4; and Geoffrey Stow, 4. Sarah admits that a primary board responsibility, especially for younger members, is simply to look cute to attract attention to the campaign.

For the record, church officials had always expected to provide a playground. The building committee wrote to Sarah, saying that the church would pay for the playground and the club's contributions would help make it "great." She's happy with that.

"We're going to keep raising money till the playground is built," said Sarah. "Through the club I've made a lot of friends, and it's important to have a lot of friends when you're trying to accomplish something big!"