Hello UCC participants in the People’s Climate March,

Here are a few (okay, many!) items that may be of interest to you as you plan your trip to New York.

  1. If you have not yet made housing arrangements, check this link to the Human Hotel to see if you can stay on someone’s couch or in their spare bedroom. If you have a group of people needing housing, contact me and I will see if there is room on the floor of one of our UCC churches in NYC. Note that this would be VERY basic accommodations, and you would be sharing with possibly several hundred people (no showers!).
  1. Please make/bring signs and banners, especially ones that identify us as UCC! There are sign-making workshops happening already in NYC. We cannot use wood or metal sticks to support the signs, only string and cardboard tubes.
  1. Faith groups will be meeting ahead of the march and walking as much as possible by affiliation. Our meeting space—for all faith groups—is 58th Street between 8th and 9th avenues. As Fletcher Harper of GreenFaith writes, “This block will be our pre-March home, our place of prayer, and our starting point for our day’s journey. May it be blessed. This block will hold at least 10,000 of us. It’s our job to pack it full!” We will have a UCC pennant to help identify our group. There will be an interfaith worship service on our block starting at 11am featuring cellist Michael Fitzpatrick and other musicians. I will send along more specifics as I get them.
  1. The march begins at 11:30am at Columbus Circle and 59th. The route is here (scroll down) and will probably take about two hours once we start walking. Because the faith groups will be among the last contingents to join the main stream of the march (in order to allow for those attending morning services to reach the march), we will likely not start actually walking for over an hour. there are also coffee shops, etc., in the vicinity (but expect them to be packed!). Expect traffic to be challenging, and expect to spend some time just standing around and waiting. Expect to buy a little something if you want to use a restaurant’s restrooms, because they may only allow customers to use the facilities. It will all be worth it! Food possibilities in the area: Whole Foods, Subway, Starbucks, sushi, and more.
  1. There is a service at 6pm that evening at the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, 1047 Amsterdam Avenue (112th and Amsterdam, one block east of Broadway). Please RSVP on the website. A pass will then be e-mailed to you the week of the march—be sure to bring it! Show up as early as possible. Doors open at 5:30pm, and priority for seating will go to those who have RSVP’d. The space holds 3,000 people, and it may be full to overflowing.
  1. There will be an Ark making this walk with the communities of faith!
  1. There are some songs being distributed for us to consider singing as we walk. One is here as a link; others are included as an attachment. One UCC marcher may be bringing a banjo. I may bring a tin whistle. Anyone else have tambourines? Small hand drums? Guitars? Let’s sing our way through Manhattan!
  1. Have your congregations back home consider becoming Climate March Faith Communities. More information is here. There are People’s Climate Marches happening in multiple locations all over the world; maybe there is one in your home community—or maybe your faith community could do one on its own. Be creative! One thing to consider is to host a viewing of the short documentary Disruption (52 minutes), which is about climate change and this march in particular.
  1. If you are on Twitter, participate in #walkthewalk by saying why you as a UCC person of faith are taking part in the march.
  1. What to wear: Let’s pull out our red and black clothes and/or UCC labeled clothes to identify ourselves as a group with the “still-speaking” colors.
  1. If you know of other UCC people who are attending the march and who are not included in this e-mail list, please forward this information. Copy me, as I am trying to get a working list of who is coming from the UCC. If you have information relative to the entire group, you can of course share it by hitting “reply all;” however, I want to caution against sending many e-mails and flooding everyone’s inbox. I will send updates as I find out more. If you would like to be removed from this list, send a note to me at and I will take your name off.

The organizers have come up with the following code of conduct.

We expect everybody taking part in the People’s Climate March on Sept. 21, 2014 to respect the following agreements:

  • We will use no violence (physical or verbal) towards any person.
  • We will not destroy or damage property.
  • We will promote a tone of respect, honesty, transparency, and accountability in our actions.
  • We will not carry anything that can be construed as a weapon, nor possess (or consume) any alcohol or drugs.
  • We will all hold each other accountable to respecting these agreements.

Please check out the logistics page of the march website for further suggestions on what to bring and what not to bring, as there are some rules about signs, amplification systems, etc.

I am excited about this march and all the ways in which we can come together in this event around climate change! I look forward to seeing you there!

Blessings and safe travels,

Meighan

Meighan Pritchard

Minister for Environmental Justice

United Church of Christ

206-370-4142