Our 2023 Radical Love Exchange fall fundraiser led by Liam and Mike Greenwood and Mary Hadley helps deepen relationships and forms new ones. Give….and you shall receive! You could post items you wished to offer through Oct 29, 2023 when we began to display them in Fellowship Hall. Every household got ten tickets they could elect to put in jars onsite or virtually online. On Nov 12, 2023 we drew winners after a special lunch following worship.

WHAT COULD YOU CONTRIBUTE? Suggestions included baked goods, soups, shopping service, yard work, custom-decorated wreaths, hand knit accessories, housecleaning, ironing, mending, photography session, a hike or outing, dinner for a family. We welcome your creativity! A gift card to a local business was a welcome offering as well. We also had a few select items for the silent auction, including a handmade quilt, a framed giclee of a watercolor of an old barn in snow and an Civil War era banjo.

GIVE AS MUCH AS YOU CAN:  Make your financial donation to support this event online here. That financial donation is how we make the exchange open to everyone. Consider giving 10% of your pledge, $100, $10 or whatever you can. Our goal is to raise at least $7,500 of the $15,000 we approved in the fundraising line of our CVUUS 2023-2024 budget and this is 1 of 2 planned fundraisers. The other is the Rhubarb Fest.

CHECK OUT THE CATALOG: Peruse a PDF of the amazing raffle items at cvuus.org here.

SEE WHO WON WHAT: Look for a print out in Fellowship Hall as well as here by item or by winner.

Radical Love Giveaway in the Past

What ​was it? A party for all ages ​that began ​after worship starting in 2017 and continued through 2019 after which COVID interrupted it, until it returned online in 2021. It overhauled our annual Fall Service Auction. We eliminated bidding and admission fees. It aimed to be inclusive in every way possible–allowing everyone access to an equal number of pre-administered tickets. Anyone could win, including children. That’s what made it radical. We gave away, through a massive raffle, more than 80 experiences and services to be shared and enjoyed by a majority of the congregation over the year. We held a party for the drawings that featured performances, pizza, and story telling about what we love about CVUUS.

What did we do in 2019?

We listened to all the feedback from our last three fall fund raisers and this is what we heard:

* As usual, we need to do something to raise something north of $8,000 to meet our budget for the year.

* The Radical Love Giveaway Party two years ago was an experiment we should be proud of and not give up on easily. Raising funds, creating fellowship, and making the opportunities equally available to everyone regardless of wealth was a unique way of living out UU values. (No wonder Montpelier experimented with its own version last fall!)

* Moving the Party to January in the second year didn’t work so we returned to November.

* Some families were upset with an arrangement where, by chance, some kids got several things they wanted and many got none. Younger children don’t understand classism or the Giveaway as a stand against it.

* Some people miss the excitement of an auction.

* People are disappointed with events that get promised but don’t happen.

We had a Radical Love Giveaway and Auction party on Sun Nov 24, 2019 after Worship. It was something similar to the first and second Radical Love Giveaway where all fellowship events were given away in random drawings and some items were auctioned off live and some by silent auction. People did not have to be present for drawings but they did have to have their tickets in the drawing which involved deputizing someone else to enter them on their behalf if they were away. All giveaway events had to specify a date (no more “date to be determined in the future” – those have a way of never happening). We extended the bidding to Dec 1. Here’s a list of what was submitted:  Catalog Radical Love 2019

Here is a list of who won what: Radical Love Items Won Nov 2019.  We gave individual sheets to each person who donated something (with who won their stuff) and sheets for each person who won something (with what they won and from whom). Anyone who won an actual item and didn’t pick it up yet could pick them up from the Blue Room on the Lower Level. 2019 Rad Love Organizers included Donna LaRose, Terry Racich, Mary Hadley and Rev. Barnaby

What did we do in 2020? Due to COVID, we didn’t conduct a Rad Love Auction auction though we considered many ideas including offering an online version but didn’t have a team ready to experiment with this. So we did a special fall appeal for financial donations based on what we recommended in previous years as a guideline to give 4% of your pledge if you were able.

What did we do in 2021? We hosted on online raffle similar to 2022 one. See who won what here: 2021 Radical Love Giveaway Winners

What did we do in 2022?  We hosted on similar to what we are doingin 2023 minus the silent auction items. Here’s who won what in 2022 (for ideas):

CVUUS-2022-Rad Love Raffle Winners by Item

CVUUS-2022-Rad Love Raffle Winners by Name