Follen Church Society

30 volunteers from Follen, adults and youth, spent six days at First Unitarian Universalist Church of New Orleans doing house gutting and repair.

Follen Member Ed Vail has made several trips to New Orleans for relief work. Ed presented the following Personal Point in the worship service on October 8.

Volunteering as a Katrina relief worker in New Orleans this summer changed my life. I missed the first Follen volunteer group last spring, but was able to take a week’s vacation time to volunteer at the First Unitarian Universalist Church of New Orleans at the end of May. That experience led me to take a two month leave of absence from work this summer, to make time and space for myself and the people in my life. At the end of the leave, I returned to New Orleans for two weeks in August, this time to help in the Wards.

Follenites flying the banner at the very soggy Gay Pride Boston 2006.

The last in a series of four Follen Forums on the issue of church-state separation will take place on Tuesday evening, February 28 at 7:00 p.m. in the Community Center. The speaker on Tuesday evening will be Sam Starobin. His topic is: “With God on Our Side”, a historic view of fundamentalism
in America.

Sam Starobin has had a series of careers that have provided him a wide range of experience. He is a graduate of West Point and had a military career of 27 years retiring in 1970 with the rank of colonel. He served in both the Korean and Viet Nam wars and two tours in Germany during which he spent four years assigned to duties with the new German army; as instructor in the Engineer school, as advisor to an Engineer battalion and as liaison officer to the German Defense Ministry. He then worked for the government of the District of Columbia heading a department responsible for the construction, procurement, real estate and other housekeeping activities.