By Susan McBain

The Orcas Island Unitarian Universalist Fellowship (OIUUF) will begin its church year this Sunday, Sept. 8, with a Water Communion and Ingathering. The service will start at 11:30 a.m. in Benson Hall at Emmanuel Church, 242 Main St. in Eastsound. You are invited to bring some water to add to the communal bowl and tell us a story about where it comes from and/or why it matters to you.

We have an exciting program year planned with both ministerial and lay speakers on the theme of Community Well Being, including poverty and homelessness, food (hunger, ethical eating, farming), education, emergency preparedness, and health care. Our next service on Sept. 22 will be a “Covenant Group Sampler.”

OIUUF meets at 11:30 a.m. on the second and fourth Sundays of each month, September through June. For more information, visit the OIUUF website orcasislanduu.org. If you need help getting to the service, visit the “Contact Us” page on the website.

Note: childcare is NOT available this Sunday. We have a wonderful space and creative material for kids, but we need to plan ahead for supervision. Please contact Suzanne Olson at 376-8007 if you would like to bring children to our services.