Newtown Friends Meeting is beginning its fall season of First Day Classes (Sunday School) for children and adults with an opening brunch at 9:30 a.m. on First Day (Sunday), September 9, followed by worship at 11 a.m. in the traditional Quaker manner of settling into silence from which anyone may speak, if moved to do so.
Finger food, juice, and coffee will be served on the Meeting House grounds, after which dozens of children will meet with their teachers to get to know them and discuss the year’s program schedule. Many of the volunteer teachers are parents or faculty from the Meeting’s elementary school, Newtown Friends School or George School, the Quaker boarding school (9 -12) in Newtown.
Sarah Buxton of Newtown, Clerk of the Children’s Religious Education committee, said, “We are looking forward to another fun-filled year. Our goals this year are to help each of our children understand what it means to be a Quaker, what Quakers believe and where they see themselves in that spiritual journey”.
Buxton added, “Our Newtown Quaker Meeting nursery is also bustling with little ones and each week they will hear a story, sing songs and play happily. We cannot wait to see everyone!”
The adult class this year will feature Spiritual Journeys by Meeting members and other prominent Quakers, news of service organizations, and current events.
Opening the adult class series on Sunday, September 16 at 9:45 a.m. will be Newtown Quaker Meeting member and Newtown resident Joe Hulihan, M.D., Chair of the Board of Trustees of Mercer Street Friends in Trenton, NJ. Hulihan will provide an update on how one of the largest providers of basic services to underserved areas of Trenton is adapting to a changing nonprofit landscape. Mercer Street Friends has an annual budget of just over $5 million and serves over 30,000 people throughout Mercer County each year.
Other scheduled programs for the adult class are several Spiritual Journeys by meeting members and others, an update on Nobel Peace Prize recipient, the American Friends Service Committee, by its new executive director Joyce Ajlouny of Philadelphia and an update on Quaker Voluntary Service (for recent college graduates) by its founder Christina Repoley of Atlanta. GA.