Our church will be hosting the Strawberry Festival this weekend. We hope to see you there!

Volunteers are still needed--our greatest need is during the hours of 1PM - 3PM.

We also have a great need for people to take orders and payment at the grill.

You can sign up for a few hours, or more or less...whatever you are available.

And here are some other ways you can help:

--Make a raffle basket. Ideas: Children’s Beach Fun, Gardening, Cookout, Carwash, etc.

--As your perennials come up, separate and pot them for the plant table.

--Get Baking for our Bake Sale Table. Please bring them by on Friday.

Do you have a popup tent you would be willing to loan us? We are looking for some tents to help keep some shade on the tables. Contact Ellen McCune if you have any.

Sign up here or call Ellen McCune at 603-329-5811 or email ellen.mccune@cgmtech.com if you have any questions. Your help is needed and appreciated!!

Please join us in the sanctuary or online for our celebration of Graduation this Sunday at 10am!

We have an amazing group of young people graduating from high school, middle school, and college, and we are honored to recognize them as they move to the next stage of their lives.

We ask that those attending wear masks and social distance as is recommended

In case you have not heard, our leadership team voted to return to worship in the sanctuary. All services will continue to be live-streamed. We thank you for sharing your thoughts through the survey.

The service will also be live-streamed through Facebook Live here or on 3CX here. We hope you will join us in person or online.

The Steeple will be lit by Roxanne McGaffigan from Jun 1^st – June 6^th.

The lighting recognizes the 20^th Wedding Anniversary of Roxanne and her husband, Michael.

Happy 20^th Anniversary Roxanne and Michael McGaffigan!

Sunday, June 20^th (Father’s Day)

Please join us right after service for an Ice Cream Social. The Missions Team will be serving Ice Cream Sundaes with all the "fixins" outside of Hadley Hall.

Donations will benefit Isaiah 58 NH.

July 11^th-18^th

The national gathering of the UCC is happening this summer, and for the first time ever it is virtual--so all are invited to attend!

General Synod is a marvelous and interesting event that brings thousands of people together from churches all around the country.

We have scholarships for anyone interested--

Once you register you have access to all aspects of General Synod, including worship, optional events, business, over 50 workshops, exhibit hall, keynote speakers and much more. Please contact Pastor Kathy for more info.

To learn more about this year's online event click here

Community Caregivers, located at 6 West Broadway Unit #6 in Derry, operates the Loaner’s Closet for Durable Medical Equipment

Used durable medical equipment is available for loan at no charge for as long as needed for Individuals and/or service providers

Loaner's Closet is looking for the following items and would put these items to good use:

Common Items Requested: (*denotes most requested items)

Bath seats*, bed assist rails*, blood pressure kits, canes, commodes, gait belts, grabbers, hearing aides, knee scooters*, manual wheelchairs*, raised toilet seats, rollators*, sock aids, transfer benches*, transport wheelchairs*, versa frames, and bariatric equipment* of all types.

Consumable Items Requested:

 Adult diapers, pull ups, under pads, Hearing Aide batteries, rubber gloves and supplemental drinks.

Crutches, Walking Boots, and Standard Wheel Walkers

For more information and up-to-date equipment needs, visit the Loaner's Closet page here

Hi there… It’s Judy D. with a brief update on my recovery from the fall I took over three weeks ago.

The cast is off…and the real work has begun. I did some interesting damage to my left elbow and the surrounding area so it will take some time before I can be out and about again. In the meantime, daughter Amanda and her cat Cotton have been staying with me for well over two weeks and will remain until at least the beginning of next week. She has helped me maneuver my way through the countless little tasks that have to be done differently right now…and has completed many wonderful projects for me inside my home and around the outside as well. What a blessing! Daughter Rachel and her family are available whenever I need them…and the Visiting Nurses have been angels.

I want to sincerely thank all of you for your cards, calls and encouraging words. You and our church mean the world to me! Hopefully, I will see you sometime in the month of June – that’s the plan. Please know that I am thinking of you with gratitude and love!

We’ve probably heard about the racial and ethnic inequalities, but technology use for vaccine registration is a problem for many. Those who live in sparsely populated areas or have no affordable transportation also have difficulty because the vaccination centers are too far away. Here is what two states are doing to alleviate some of these problems (scroll to blue charts). If you want to get in the “weeds” with data in scientific CDC reports between rural and urban counties this is for you.

National Public Radio has posted a great visual simulation for how a virus spreads through a population based on the percentage of the population that is vaccinated. As we think about the disparities in vaccination rates, it is important to realize how that affects us all – including how we open church. The simulation models the spread at various vaccination rates with variations based on (1) more infectious variants being widespread, (2) if the community was already heavily exposed thus having higher natural immunity, and (3) if the community had low levels of natural immunity at the start of the outbreak.

What is the current rate of vaccination in New Hampshire? From here you can check out other states and the United States as a whole. There is also a worldwide chart. Globally only 5.5% of the population is vaccinated. India, where the outbreak has recently been extremely bad, the vaccination rate is 3.2%. Japan is even lower, 2.7%. This worldwide data illustrates why we need to increase vaccine availability to other countries. We are not isolated in the world. Ease of travel and global trade has made isolation impossible.

There is also a thoughtful Washington Post article highlighting the need to end the disparities between rich and poor countries in order to achieve a broad-based recovery from the pandemic. The International Monetary Fund staff has put forth a proposal for doing that with a cost of $50 billion to help end the pandemic thus improve economic recovery. The plan includes a call for increasing our ability to vaccinate more people faster. This would help prevent the risk of new variants that would require booster shots or new vaccines. Immediate boost testing and tracing, oxygen supplies, therapeutic and public health and vaccine accessibility.

* More from the beginning of the pandemic to now: Coronavirus By the Numbers.

Beethoven was a child prodigy and was taught music by his aggressive and abusive father from a very young age until age 21, when he went to study under composer Joseph Haydn.

In his early 20s, Beethoven began losing his hearing, which he would completely lose by the time he was 46. Despite the loss of his hearing, his pitch still remained perfect and he composed his most famous works after he was fully deaf.

Around the time this disability took a hold of him, he became a recluse, separating himself from friends and family and spending his time alone, feverishly composing music night and day. The composer was famously hard to get along with, and as we would say in 2020, started drama with many of his contemporaries, including one incident where he tried to break a chair over an Austrian Prince’s head.

He never married or had children, but he did have one lifelong crush on a married woman, who he wrote poetic and brooding love letters to.