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Home / Community Board

Resources for the Charlottesville Community & Ways to Help During the COVID-19 Crisis

April 1, 2020 by Kate Brinkley

UVA Medical Center Blood Drive

Virginia hospitals are experiencing a severe blood shortage across the state. UVA Health encourages members of the community who are healthy & eligible to contact the American Red Cross to make an appointment to donate at one of their fixed locations. 

Charlottesville City Schools Free Lunch Program

Charlottesville City Schools is offering free lunch to students during the coronavirus pandemic. The Charlottesville Area Community Foundation is creating a school-based fund to support their food delivery efforts.

General Ways to Give & Receive Support

Support Cville is the most comprehensive website listing ways for people to give and receive support. Here are a couple specific links through Support Cville:

  • Contribute to local nonprofits, restaurants and UVA students.
  • Receive money, supplies and services.

Donate to COVID-19 Support Funds

  • Charlottesville Area Community Foundation
  • United Way COVID-19 Crisis Relief Fund
  • Alliance for Interfaith Ministries

Blue Ridge Area Food Bank

The food bank needs healthy volunteers to help with local relief efforts. See their statement on COVID-19 and their Volunteer page. To find volunteer opportunities, click here.

Free Internet Access

COMCAST Xfinity is now offering free hotspots to anyone who needs them for free until approximately May 13, including non-Xfinity Internet subscribers. For a map of Xfinity WiFi hotspots, visit www.xfinity.com/wifi. Once at a hotspot, select the “xfinitywifi” network name in the list of available hotspots and then launch a browser. AT&T and Charter Communications are also providing free public Wi-Fi, now until  approximately May 13.

Filed Under: Common Grounds, Community Board, Gleanings Monthly Magazine, Graduate Students and Young Adults, Mission and Outreach, Peace, Justice & Inclusion, UKirk, Presbyterian Student Fellowship, Uncategorized

Westminster Featured as Solar Faith Community

August 31, 2018 by Kate Brinkley

Westminster has gotten some Commonwealth-wide recognition! Virginia Interfaith Power & Light (VAIPL) is our state affiliate of Interfaith Power & Light, which brings together faith communities to mobilize a religious response to climate change through energy conservation, energy efficiency, and renewable energy. Recently, their news featured solar faith communities and congregations across the state, and Westminster was one of those featured.  Click here and scroll down.

Filed Under: Community Board, Green Team, Mission and Outreach

How Do We Test For The Gender of the Heart?

July 26, 2018 by Westminster Presbyterian Church

             “The only dependable test for gender is the truth of a person’s life, the lives we live each day.  Surely the best judge of a person’s gender is not a degrading, questionable, examination. The best judge of a person’s gender is what lies within his or her heart. How do we test for the gender of the heart. . . ?”                                                                  Quote by Jennifer Finney Boylan in Becoming Nicole                                                                         

               This morning, before heading off to Westminster Pres., I finished reading Becoming Nicole by Amy Ellis Nutt. A few months ago, this book was recommended to me as an educational resource to understand the growing interest and issues related to transgender people.  Becoming Nicole provides a clinical, sociological and psychological perspective on what it means to be a transgender man or woman growing up in America. And yet, Nutt’s book is so much more than these words imply.

In essence, this is a book about family. It’s about the people who are touched and transformed by a son or daughter’s personal struggle to come to terms with his/her/their identity.

It’s a book about a father who, in the beginning, resisted and reacted poorly to his son’s realization that he could no longer continue to live in the body from his birth. It’s a story about how, despite his own personal struggles, this same father never stopped loving his child.  Indeed, Nicole’s father now travels across the country speaking out on Nicole’s behalf. He has become his daughter’s strongest advocate and admirer. He is, and always will be, Nicole’s dad.

It’s about a mother who fought for her child’s right to be herself in the public schools.  Over the years, while others thought she was somehow mistaken or used poor parenting judgment, Nicole’s mother was convinced that, from an early age, Nicole was unique and deserving of dignity and respect.  To me, her commitment to her daughter demonstrates, once again, that a mother’s unconditional love is stronger than another person’s lack of understanding.

It’s also a story about Nicole’s twin brother, Jonas. It’s about a brother’s steadfast love and support through good times and bad. “I never had a brother,” Jonas once said to Nicole, “You were always a sister to me.”

This book is as informative as it is simply beautiful. In some chapters, the reader will find him/her/themself immersed in pronouns, medical realities, and transgender politics. But in other chapters, a tear will come to the reader’s eye.

As Nicole once said, “Stories move the walls that need to be moved.” I wholeheartedly agree. If this issue has become a “wall” in your family or you want to know more about families facing this particular situation, put Becoming Nicole on your summer reading list.  My prayer for all of us is that such earthy and personal stories will “move the walls that need to be moved” whether they exist in a cultural context or in our hearts.

Blessings, Ken

FYI, Westminster Presbyterian Church will be hosting a pastoral care conference  for pastors, chaplains, and spiritual caregivers, October 21-23. The conference will focus on how churches and pastors care for transgender persons and their families.

https://innovation.sfts.edu/transgender-care/

Filed Under: Advocacy & Organizing, Community Board, Families & Children, J2A, LGBTQ+, Mission and Outreach, Notes from Ken, Peace, Justice & Inclusion, Prayers For Our Community, YAC

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Welcome

Congregational Annual Meeting Sunday, January 22

January 4, 2023 By Westminster Presbyterian Church

All Westminster members are invited to the the Congregational Annual Meeting on Sunday, January 22. The purpose of the meeting is to nominate and elect trustees, receive the church budget, and vote on the Pastors’ Terms of Call. Everyone is welcome to a sumptuous meal in Fellowship Hall following the meeting. Annual Reports from the […]

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“So faith, hope, and love abide, these three;
but the greatest of these is love.”
−1 Corinthians 13:13

Our Mission

Sustained by grace, we are called to serve Christ, share God’s love, and work for justice in a complex world.

Our Values

With faith, hope, and love as bedrock Christian values, we also cherish the following:
  • Thinking and Learning
  • Inclusiveness
  • Fellowship
  • Stewardship
  • Courage

 

Westminster follows the Presbyterian Book of Confession and is a confessional church. You can view/read the Book of Confession at the PC(USA) website by clicking on the following link: https://www.pcusa.org/resource/book-confessions/.

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Charlottesville, Virginia 22903-2474
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