November 18, 2020 —
From the Board of Trustees —
Dear Friends,
The Board of Trustees met last night and made the following decisions.
ALL IN-PERSON SERVICES CANCELLED until further notice.
In-person Remembrance and Thanksgiving Eve services have been cancelled. They will be streamed on Facebook Live and posted to our website and YouTube. The Thanksgiving Picnic will be held as scheduled since it is an outdoor event.
You may contact board members or Rev. Carmen through the office with any questions.
With coronavirus spreading through the community, we made the difficult decision to hold off reopening the Sanctuary for services. Out of an abundance of caution and with our concern for the health of our congregation it became clear to us that we should wait. The White House COVID-19 Task Force November 15, 2020 weekly update below, as well as other local reports, led to our decision.
“There is now aggressive, unrelenting, expanding broad community spread across the country, reaching most counties, without evidence of improvement but rather, further deterioration. Current mitigation efforts are inadequate and must be increased to flatten the curve to sustain the health system for both Covid and non-Covid emergencies.”
We know there is a strong desire to be together in church. We all want that, and if the spread of the virus was trending down rather than up, we would feel safe to resume letting people into the Sanctuary. Two weeks ago, thinking we were on course to do that, we worked diligently to prepare for in-person services: we recruited volunteers, rearranged the Sanctuary and developed a safe process. Now, in the light of new information, we must wait. The good news is that we are now ready when the time is right.
Your Trustees and Ministers take the responsibility of your spiritual and physical life seriously. So we will wait until after Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s to see if the numbers of COVID-19 positivity, hospitalizations, and deaths start to decline before we again attempt to open our doors.
We love you and want you to be safe. Please wear masks, socially distance, wash your hands, and avoid situations that put you at risk. We pray daily for your health and safety.
We know fellowship is a big part of our community and after we made this difficult decision, we wanted to see what things we can do to increase fellowship while we remain physically distanced. We are developing a Fellowship Plan to keep in touch and share the love with one another. There are many ways to stay in touch and we will spend our time and resources to offer different ways to stay connected. We are eager to see what fun activities will emerge.
On a different note, Rev. Teresa is preparing for her new role, and we are excited for her to begin her tenure with Unity of Daytona Beach. We look forward to 2021, which is full of hope that we will soon be physically together again to share services and other activities.
Thank you for your support and let us affirm that all is in Divine Order, and so it is.
Praying always for your highest and best,
Deborah Zeoli
President Board of Trustees