Operations is looking for your help to do some Spring cleaning, both inside and outside the church.

Bring work gloves and tools, and your favorite cleaning supplies. Share some fellowship with fellow members and other volunteers.

A list of specific tasks in addition to general clean-up is being prepared. All are welcome to assist. Many hands make short work.

We are sad to share the news that a long-time member of HCC, Stan Lapham, passed away this week on Monday, May 2.

Visitation will be held at Brookside Chapel and Funeral Home @ 116 Main Street in Plaistow on Friday, May 13 from 4 PM - 6 PM. The memorial service will be held on Saturday, May 14 starting at 11 AM. All are invited to a luncheon in Hadley Hall after the service.

The obituary can be read here on the Brookside website once they have updated their site.

May Stan rest in peace, and may his family be comforted.

One of the ways our congregation offers hospitality is by helping host a lunch for the family after a congregant's memorial service.

If you are willing to help with memorial lunches, please contact the main office and let Suzanne know. Thank you for helping our congregation provide this important ministry.

Hampstead Eats - The Food Truck Festival was a tremendous success! A Great Day, Great Food, Great Music!

Thank you everyone for making Hampstead Eats a successful event again this year. We raised over $5200 for the church, and a portion will be donated to the New Hampshire food bank.

The event was well attended with over 1,100 people coming to sample the nine food trucks and listen to the three musical ensembles.

I’d like to give a very special thank you to Ellen McCune, Barbara Wallack, and Lora Manning for helping this project takeoff. Also, much gratitude to Chris McCune and Dave Chin for their support and to everyone else who lent a helping hand. The Pinkerton Academy JROTC cadets played an important part in making the event a success as well.

We were lucky to have good weather to go along with the good food. One vendor commented how it was such a happy and pleasant venue to be at. What a great testament to our congregation and community!

The New Hampshire food bank collected many large boxes of food and hundreds of dollars; final total is not known at this time. 

Thanks and love to all for supporting Hampstead Eats - Roxanne McGaffigan

Please join us in the sanctuary

or online at 10am for the

Fourth Sunday of Easter

Please join us for coffee hour after the service.

The service will be live streamed through Facebook Live here or on 3CX here.

You are invited to attend the UCC Rockingham Association Spring Meeting on Sunday, May 22, 2022 on Zoom. Social time will begin at 1:45pm followed by the business meeting at 2pm.

At our Spring meeting we will vote on the slate of nominees. We will be filling four slots. One of the ways you can serve our larger UCC church is by helping out in our Association.

Please prayerfully consider helping serve the larger church as:

Rockingham Association Executive Committee:

or

We have a couple of copies of the May/June Upper Room devotional available in the foyer to Hadley Hall. If you need a copy mailed to you, please contact the main office.

I read an interesting and fascinating article in New Hampshire Magazine recently. It was about Albert Johnston Jr, a young black man who grew up in Gorham, NH in the 1940s with his family “passing” as white. Both of his parents were light-skinned. They moved from Chicago to Gorham when Albert Jr. was 16 and his father became a successful country doctor with 2500 white patients. His father was also an active member of the school board, the Masons, and the Rotary while his mother served in many community organizations, including as president of the Gorham Women’s Club and as a member of the Congregational Church.

The story tells the tale of his learning that he was black. He struggled with this information by drawing inward, dropping out of Dartmouth College, enlisting in the Navy and leaving, talking of suicide, and spending time in a psychiatric ward. He finally took a road trip with a white buddy and ultimately returned to New Hampshire and attended UNH. There he found success and self-confidence.

The story comes to a 1947 meeting of Academy Award-winning film producer, Louis de Rochemont, and Albert and a group of fellow students. When de Rochemont asked what he could do for “you fellas”? Albert “boldly” stated that since he had made many movies about famous Americans like Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Edison, “why don’t you think about making films and famous Black people like George Washington Carver and Booker T. Washington?” Thus the beginning of the writing of a book, Lost Boundaries, and producing a film of the same name. This was the beginning of several other movies tackling “the Negro problem” in theaters in 1949 and 1950.

The story continues with the difficulties in making the film, the impact its release had on the Johnston family, and the impact it had on the movie industry. It is an engrossing story concluding with the reunion of the surviving cast and crew and members of the Johnston family at a screening at Keene State College. The film is part of the Warner Brothers Archive Collection with a modern viewer rating of 4 stars.

You can read the full article at https://www.nhmagazine.com/lost-boundaries/

Blessings,

Debra

Pastor Kathy 5/01

Courtney N 5/02

Boden H 5/12

Tucker H 5/12

Marie H 5/14

Brendan L 5/15

Peter T 5/16

Conor J 5/20

Michael S 5/21

Kirsten H 5/21

Benjamin B 5/22

Starr S 5/24

Lester K 5/27

Bea R 5/27

Rick L 5/28

Jessica C 5/31

Fellow gardeners, now that the spring weather is upon us, it is time to dig up and divide those perennials!

We will be having the plant sale at the Strawberry Festival and perennials are always a good seller.

If you dig your perennials now while the tops are small and the roots are strong, pot them up and care for them, you can avoid the stress and wilt that digging just before the event can cause. By doing this now, we will have nice, full, healthy-looking plants for the Strawberry Festival!

Please label your plants with as much information as you know: Name, variety, and color.

Thank you, from the plant table team!

canned ravioli (or similar)

coffee

salad dressings

cans of grated cheese

pasta sauce

flour

sugar

Please drop off any donations in the foyer of Hadley Hall

We located a national organization that has local chapters called Project Linus (https://www.facebook.com/projectlinussouthwestnewhampshire/). This organization's mission is "to provide love, a sense of security, warmth and comfort to children who are seriously ill, traumatized, or otherwise in need through the gifts of new, handmade blankets and afghans". Blankets are given to children in need through NH.

*We accept all sizes of blankets. We donate to children, infants through teen years, so any size is appropriate. Baby blankets are typically 36”X36” or 36”X42”, toddler-pre-teen are typically about 40”X60”, and teen blankets are at least 60"X72".

If in doubt, please call the church or send an email to pastorkathyucc@gmail.com.