UUC’s Second Sunday Plate collections serve as a direct expression of our faith through justice and service work. This month's Second Sunday Plate will go to the United Indians of All Tribes Foundation (UIATF).

Founded in 1970, UIATF, based at the Daybreak Star Indian Culture Center in Seattle’s Discovery Park, provides a broad range of culturally responsive services and programming to Seattle and King County’s urban Native community. They have programs to support parents and caregivers of young children, crisis housing and re-housing for youth, provide lunches and cultural activities for elders, and more. The Daybreak Star building is home to Daybreak Star Preschool, the Daybreak Star radio station, and the Sacred Circle Gallery. In addition, the UIATF hosts the Seafair Indian Days Powwow, events for Indigenous People’s Day, and Native art markets.

Scott Pinkham, UIATF’s Equity/Family Services Programs Manager, will be joining us on January 12. Among Scott's responsibilities is managing the organization’s partnership with Sound Alliance, an organization composed of faith, labor, health education, and community organizations. UUC has been a member of Sound Alliance since 2008.

UIATF worked with other Native organizations to develop the Wrestling with the Truth of Colonization training program hosted by Sound Alliance. One of the goals of this program is to be a community organizing effort towards creating enduring relationships and solidarity between Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities.

Catherine Ruha was among several UUC members participated in Wrestling with the Truth of Colonization back in February and March of 2024, with Scott Pinkham as one of the facilitators. "I found the program a powerful opportunity to engage in a process of learning about and facing how this nation’s settler/colonial history, how my ancestral settler/colonial history, continue to impact Indigenous communities today. Colonialism isn’t a done deal. And, I am working to confront Indigenous erasure and support Indigenous sovereignty. The curriculum, facilitation, and activities set me on a journey to consider how I continually act within the stories of Indigenous peoples and how I might “begin to sow the seeds of a different reality” (p.15) from my settler/colonial one. I encourage UUC members to participate in future programs and to support UIATF’s local work through your donation to the May Second Sunday Plate."

You may add your donation to the plate at the January 12 service, donate online through UUC Connect (select Special Plate and specify "January plate") or send your check to the UUC office with "2nd Sunday Plate—January" in the memo line.

~Catherine Ruha, on behalf of UUC's Acting for Racial Justice Team