Continuing to choose community: July Update from Side With Love

Jul 6

July calls us to continue.

We have just marked 250 years since the founding of this country, a milestone that asked us to hold two truths at once: the audacity of a people who declared themselves free, and the long, unfinished work of making that freedom real for everyone. In a season when our commitments are tested and our capacity is stretched thin by summer's pace, we return to what has always sustained us: the power of showing up together, the clarity that comes from shared discernment, and the joy of a movement that keeps growing. You are the reason this work is possible. Thank you for continuing to choose community.

Coming out of General Assembly, Unitarian Universalists return home carrying renewed energy and fresh commitments. Side With Love's programming at GA reminded us that this movement is bigger than any one gathering — it is the relationships we build, the learnings we share, and the organizing we carry back into our congregations. If you joined us in Louisville, one of the satellite sites, or followed along from afar, thank you for being part of it. Now the real work begins: turning that energy into action all summer long.

Start this Thursday, July 9 at 8:00pm ET with our live virtual training Tune Up to Show Up: A Skills & Risk Assessment Refresher, where Rev. Ashley Horan, Rev. Nancy McDonald Ladd, and civil rights attorney Sam Ames will help us navigate the shifting risks of public witness and direct action and reinforce the skills and habits we need to show up grounded, prepared, and safe.

America's founding ideals have always existed alongside profound failures to live up to them, and this milestone is not a moment for uncritical celebration, but for truth-telling, reckoning, and bold imagination. Through our Declarations of Democracy programming this fall, we continue gathering with faith leaders, scholars, and organizers to name what democracy has been, confront what it has excluded, and build together toward what it must become. This work does not end with a single weekend of fireworks, it continues all summer. (See the UUA’s and Side with Love responses to the Supreme Court’s final rulings in June.)

And UU the Vote 2026 is heating up right alongside the season. With events, trainings, and actions multiplying across the country, congregations are building the relational infrastructure and organizing capacity that sustained democratic participation requires. This is the long work and it is well underway.

Below you will find all of our events, trainings, and opportunities to keep you connected and active this month.

Let's keep building. Let's keep choosing love, not as a slogan, but as the shared, public, transformative practice it has always been.

In solidarity,

The Side With Love Team