Our October Special Offering benefits the United Church of Christ’s Neighbors in Need offering. In 2022, the Neighbors in Need (NIN) offering focuses on economic justice.
The NIN offering to Just Love Church in 2021 enabled 24 high school students from an economically-challenged Houston neighborhood to implement a local campaign for a $15 minimum-wage law. Many workers in the area, especially in fast-food and other service industries, find it hard to make ends meet.
Gradually raising the federal minimum wage to $15 by 2025 would lift pay for 32 million workers—21% of the U.S. workforce. Thirty-one percent of African Americans and one-quarter of Latinx would get a raise.
Child labor is prevalent in agriculture. When parents make poverty wages, they need their children to work too. The 300,000 to 500,000 estimated children 12 and over who work in agriculture are the least protected workforce in the US by law. Every day, around 33 children are injured doing farm work. UCC churches are working with the National Farm Worker Ministry toward legislation that would increase safety and protections for child laborers.
One-third of the NIN offering also goes to support the Council for American Indian Ministry, which supports five ministries and 20 congregations. They say, “We are an integral part of the life of the United Church of Christ. We maintain our Indian traditions by employing our Native values and cultures to witness in our communities through authentic and postcolonial Indian expressions of the Christian faith.”
Facts and figures come from the Economic Policy Institute, the UCC Neighbors in Need, and the National Farm Workers Ministry.
Please give online or send a check to UCUCC, noting on the memo line “October Special Offering”.