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Ohio-Meadville District of the UUA |
The Young Adult and Campus Ministry Consultant is Ellen Carvill-Ziemer. She is primarily responsible for providing resources and support to congregations and clusters who are creating and supporting young adult and campus ministry programs in the district. She works with the OMD UU Young Adult Network and district congregations and campus ministry programs. This is part-time position was created by the OMD Board with the UUA in June of 2006. Ellen is the first Young Adult and Campus Ministry Consultant in the district.
You can contact Ellen Carvill-ZIemer via email at ecarvill at ohiomeadville.org; or by phone at 330-673-8418. If you need her mailing address, please contact her or the district office or check the printed copy of the district directory found in every district congregation.
Click here to sign up your Bridging Youth for our Young Adult database so we can keep them connected.
Click here to download a pdf file of all the handouts from the two Young Adult Workshops at the District Assembly 2007.
Click here to download a pdf file of all the handouts and a summary from the Young Adult sponsored GA 2007 workshop co-led by Ellen titled Conflict: A Community Theater Experience.
Here is Ellen's article, Youth Bridging, from the June Issue of District Doings.
This is the time of the year when we send our graduating high schoolers off into the world. Many of them move away from home and most of them lose both their childhood church and their youth group. As you wave goodbye, please remember that they are not just leaving you, but arriving somewhere else.
In particular, we would like them to know that as they leave their youth communities behind, there is a community of young adults waiting to welcome them! We’d like to be able to send them announcements about district events for young adults. We’d like to subscribe them to the UUA’s Young Adult and Campus Ministry Newsletter. We’d like to let them know about local young adult and campus ministry groups. But we can’t do any of that if we don’t have their names and addresses.
You can also help keep them in touch with Unitarian Universalism. You can help them become members of Church of the Younger Fellowship (www.uucyf.org). You can subscribe them to your church newsletter or the UU World. You can send them care packages at finals or hold a special event over winter break. You could even send postcards to their new churches introducing them! As you send your former youth off into the world, remember that in this fragile time of transition from youth to young adult, from high school to college, they need us more than ever.
Please send the names, permanent mailing addresses, and colleges or next venture for your bridging youth to Ellen Carvill-ZIemer-Ziemer at the address listed above.
And Ellen's article, UUYAN, also from the June Issue of District Doings.
This spring has been a very active one for young adults. Besides the annual spring conference, we also participated in District Assembly in its new fabulous form. I was particularly pleased with the excellent contributions from so many young adults in our district. Jamie Goodwin from Akron, Karina Leppik from Oberlin, and Ahmie Yeung from West Shore led a spirit filled Friday night worship complete with a participatory ‘weaving’ together of our community. Alyssa Lamb from Kent organized a coffee house for Friday evening and Brandyn Wheeler-Glickman and Evan Hayford brought music. I’m particularly grateful to Ahmie for her on the ground logistical support in pulling everything off and to Alyssa for organizing young adult fundraising.
If you missed District Assembly, you also missed two opportunities to explore how your congregation could better integrate and welcome young adults. However, the informational handouts from those workshops are available on the OMD website (Click here to download pdf file) I welcome any follow up questions and discussion about this material, challenges facing your congregation, or new ideas you’d like to try out.
Upcoming events of special interest to UU’s ages 18-35 include a retreat for those interested in district leadership on June 16-17 (http://omd.uua.org/committees/omduuyan.html) and Summer Institute. Remember, there’s a special weekend opportunity for young adults if you can’t get the whole week off work. This is hands-down single biggest annual young adult event in our area—if you can make it, come!
