Our Fellowship has a long tradition of acting with compassion toward those in need. Helping feed those with limited resources is one way we can live out our principles. In February, 2023, we adopted Safe Space , a non-profit that serves the houseless. We have served meals and helped with these guests, who are sleeping in the donated local Chico shelter halls during cold, inclement and extremely hot weather. We support a Giving Garden on our church grounds for helping feed the many persons with food insecurity in our community. UUFC members regularly donate food and we deliver it to the various food pantries in Chico.

For over a decade, UUFC volunteers prepared and served a full meal each month for up to 160 guests living at the Torres Community Shelter. Throughout the pandemic we continued to purchase and deliver food to them.

Giving Garden

Originally conceived of by our Building & Grounds committee in conjunction with our children’s Religious Exploration class, our UUFC “Giving Garden” has continued to shine as a result of hard work by dedicated volunteers and Chico State University students.

Adrienne Edwards, a friend of UUFC and a Chico State faculty member, recruits some of her students to plant, maintain, and harvest vegetables and persimmons in the garden to experience civic engagement first-hand. Kale, cabbage, and broccoli starts were generously donated from the Chico State University Farm. Students have harvested and delivered about 300 Fuyu persimmons, as well as monthly grocery bags chock-full of chard, kale, and radishes, to the Chico State Hungry Wildcat Food Pantry and the Torres Community Shelter

The students are not only enthusiastic to work in the garden, but quite moved to be able to donate food to the Torres Shelter as well as the Chico State Hungry Wildcat Food Pantry. One student built a triple-bin composting station, which enables us to compost more landscape waste on site. The Giving Garden continues to grow and serve as a teaching resource, as a food resource, and as outreach to the community.

Concow Community Donation

In 2020, UUFC donated Camp Fire Funds – contributed by many generous people and organizations throughout the country – to a charity helping to meet the needs of folks in the Concow area of rural Butte County.

In 2015, Concow residents Teri and John Rubiolo began serving meals to those in need in the Concow area. When the Camp Fire destroyed their home in 2018, they continued to serve a hundred meals a day. Within a week of moving back to a trailer on their property, the couple was serving meals to the Concow community once again. Teri and John cooked all the meals in their own trailer until they received a donated trailer for their cook kitchen. Along with cooking meals, the Rubiolos offer laundry services, showers, and propane with funds UUFC and others contributed.