What is Share the Plate?  During each Sunday service, we take a collection. This voluntarily given money is then shared between our congregation and an organization from the local community which has goals that align with Unitarian Universalist principles. This month’s Share the Plate recipient is the Thompson-Patch Scholarship Fund. 

The Nellie Thompson-Dorothy Patch Scholarship Fund is named for two champions of social justice and equality in Salem.
In 1976, Dorothy Patch – longtime school teacher and community activist – and Reverend Nellie Thompson teamed up to find ways to improve Salem’s racial climate. 

In honor of their legacy, the Thompson-Patch Scholarship Fund provides financial assistance to Salem-area ethnic minority students so they can go to college or trade school. For the past 22 years, the Fund has helped students who have faced obstacles in their lives and who have shown promise and resilience by overcoming adversity.

More than 200 students that have received Thompson-Patch scholarships. Many of the scholarship recipients have gone on to get degrees.

Please consider making a separate,  one-time donation this month with Thompson-Patch Scholarship Fund on the memo line, or as a Share the Plate donation.