On behalf of the New Neighbors Coalition, Manager Momina di Blasio spoke at the Unitarian Church after accepting its T. Richard Parker Award for Social Justice from Award Committee Chair Dr. Jeffrey Victor.

Jamestown’s New Neighbors Coalition (NNC) received the T. Richard Parker Award for Social Justice from the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Jamestown.

Manager Momina di Blasio accepted on behalf of her organization.

Based at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, the New Neighbors Coalition is a grassroots volunteer network committed to welcoming immigrants to Jamestown. Its mission is to assist new friends with community navigation, accessing services, transportation, and human connection, helping make new arrivals’ transition filled with compassion and understanding.

In recognition of its work, the UUCJ honored the coalition with the award that included a framed certificate and a check for $500. At the presentation, Awards Committee chair Dr. Jeffrey Victor explained that the T. Richard Parker Award was established in 1985 following the sudden death of Parker, a longtime leader of the congregation. It was created to memorialize his ideals in a way that would contribute to the local community.

Victor gave a brief history of Unitarians’ participation in social justice movements, from anti-slavery through anti-Nazism, women’s and civil rights, to the current day.

“For Unitarians, social justice is not a mere secular value, but one that defines our faith. It is central to our religiosity. This award is a reminder to us of what we stand for,” he said. “We hope that by giving them (people who fight injustice) some public recognition others will use them as models to imitate what they do. And thereby their numbers will grow.”

Di Blasio thanked the congregation for both this recognition and its support for the Coalition’s work, including sharing space for the storage of household goods for new residents. She described how volunteers recognized Jamestown would be a good refugee resettlement hub both because its low cost of living could benefit newcomers and the community could benefit from having a steady stream of new arrivals when our population is declining. Initially a support network for Journey’s End Settlement Services, it welcomed its first family in March 2023. Currently on pause because of the stop in the federal refugee program, the New Neighbors Coalition has moved to serving immigrant communities, now with support from the New York State Office for New Americans.

Concluding her remarks, di Blasio quoted Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” She noted that the opposite is true: “Every time we engage in acts of social justice or we inform ourselves a little bit more about what’s going on to others and what’s going on around the world, we’re chipping away at all forms of injustice.”

The Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Jamestown is a progressive, liberal religious community serving the southern tier of Western New York and Warren County, Pa. Learn more at UUJamestown.org or Facebook.com/JamestownUU.