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Minutes of Peace and Social Concerns Meetings

April 6, 2008 April 27, 2008 May 25, 2008 June 29, 2008 July 27, 2008 August 31, 2008 September 28, 2008 October 26, 2008 November 30, 2008 January 11, 2009 February 22, 2009 March 29, 2009 April 26, 2009 May 31, 2009 June 28, 2009

October 31, 2009 February 28, 2010 March 28, 2010 April 25, 2010 May 30, 2010 October 31, 2010 November 28, 2010 February 27, 2011 March 27, 2011 April 24, 2011 September 24, 2011 October 30, 2011 November 27, 2011 September 24, 2011

Minutes Peace and Social Concerns Committee
November 30, 2008
Present were: Kate Murphey, Tony Swan, Faith Marsalli, and Bill and Shari Burke

Ken Magee was out of town and could not attend the meeting. However, it was noted that Ken and Luke took down the torture banner. It can be put back up at a later date. Ken also told Kate that he knows some people who do missionary work in Rwanda and he thinks they would be good candidates for a Peace Supper presentation.

We decided to keep collecting holiday type food items for the food bank through December. In January we will focus on soup and fixings. We received a letter from the food bank saying that from October 2-November 6 we had donated 1281 pounds of food! That includes the potatoes from the Staunton Farm as well as regular weekly donations.

Next we discussed Kaimosi University. Shari spoke to Dennis Hagen when he was visiting a couple of weeks ago and found out where and how to send the scholarship money. However, she also discovered that final governmental approval has not yet been obtained by the people there and much still needs to be done before that will be forthcoming. We agreed that we need to find out how much money we currently have for the scholarship, how much, if any, has already been sent, and hold on to what we have until we know it is time to send it. When we do send it we need to make sure we specifically designate it as scholarship money. Since our support for this particular project is ending, we briefly talked about what we will support next year. Faith felt strongly that food issues keep coming up and there seems to be a great deal of energy around that issue throughout the meeting. We decided that we would recommend Bread for the World as our focus for next year. This would dovetail nicely with our commitment to food issues locally in terms of education in the community at events like Quaker Bakers.

Faith talked about what she is finding out about immigration issues. She is working with Ken Jansen from Chiloquin on putting together a panel for a Peace Supper, which we plan to have on January 23 to coincide with Martin Luther King's birthday and the inauguration, both earlier that same week. The purpose would be to provide information to people. Possible attendees would be a lawyer, a farmer, and someone who is dealing with immigration issues in his own life right now.

Kate brought some information about fair trade products. Based on past history, chocolate sold quite well and coffee not so much. So we will order 50 candy bars and sell them at the meetinghouse. The proceeds from this could then go to Bread for the World or whatever project we will be supporting next year. One of the purposes of doing this would be educational-it gives people an opportunity to learn more about where their food comes from and under what conditions it is produced.

Finally, we talked about trying to find out more about what other churches in the area are doing and what kinds of issues they are focused on. Shari suggested a potluck/meeting where representatives from area churches could all get together at the meetinghouse to talk to us and each other. This helps to promote dialogue and allows people to find opportunities to cooperate if desired. We will aim for a date in February or March. Tony mentioned a community dinner being held at First United Methodist Church and said he would find out if they might be interested in having some help from members of this meeting.

December Food Drive will continue to be food used for Holiday meals and food help for the family that Karen Little is working with.

Food collected for October and November