Bethesda Friends Meeting  has sponsored various Forums and Workshops, both at the Morella Library in downtown Bethesda and, more recently, via Zoom. 

• Questions?  Use our "Contact us" form.

Past events

Action in Montgomery (AIM) events www.actioninmontgomery.org

Emphasis in 2023: Participation in Action in Montgomery (AIM) events.  BFM was a founding congregation of AIM and remains very active. 

• We attended a major in-person "accountability action" on March 12, 2023 to meet with County Executive and County Council members at the Peoples Community Baptist Church in Silver Spring.
• AIM's key issues in various forums were affordable housing, safer neighborhoods, climate justice and racial equity through electrification and weatherization, dental care access for low-income adults, and free pre-K for all.

MARYLAND'S CLIMATE SUSTAINABILITY PLAN

Recently Maryland set the most aggressive climate goal of any state in the country, according to the state’s new “Climate Pathway” report by the U-Maryland’s Center for Global Sustainability in partnership with the Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE).

• On Sunday, September 24, 2023, BFM hosted a forum to discuss the state’s new climate goals at the BFM Meetinghouse and via Zoom.  
• Our guest speaker was BFM's Kathleen Kennedy, PhD, who was lead author of the report, which models a pathway to meet the state’s goals of 60% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2031 and a net-zero carbon economy by 2045.  Kathleen discussed how individuals and organizations can provide input to MDE’s process before the state’s final climate plan is published at year end. 

For a report overview, click here. The full report and summaries are at https://www.marylandsclimatepathway.com/. 

Safeguarding Our Elections

In 2020, the focus of the Peace & Social Justice Committee was on "safeguarding everyone’s right to vote and getting everyone’s vote counted."

This involved supporting the work of four nonpartisan organizations that have been active in this field.

The four organizations are:

• The League of Women Voters https://www.lwv.org/voting-rights  

• Common Cause https://www.commoncause.org/responding-to-covid-19/

• The Brennan Center for Justice https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/responding-coronavirus-crisis

• Reclaim Our Vote (which focuses on minorities across the US)  https://actionnetwork.org/forms/reclaim-our-vote-signup   and   https://actionnetwork.org/groups/reclaim-our-vote

October 5 & 6, 2020: A White Historian Explores Black Voting Rights --with Susan Strasser  

• American voting has historically been restricted on the basis of many things other than race, including gender, class, ethnicity, religion, age, and personal history. But race stands out. Only African Americans have had the right to vote granted and repeatedly taken away. Voting has been one aspect of a larger system of racist laws and customs, and the right to vote has been intertwined with the rights to good education, housing, and jobs, with that system being backed by violence, terror, and intimidation.
• Using nearly sixty images and maps, Ms. Strasser surveys this history, with emphasis on two moments of possibility—Reconstruction and the early 1960s— and on recent attacks on the right to vote.  This is the third of a series of her illustrated talks, "A White Historian Reads Black History."  

June 10, 2019:  Workshop on "Reversing Global Warming: Introduction to Drawdown"

• Project Drawdown is a coalition of more than 200 researchers and other experts from 22 countries led by author, environmentalist, and entrepreneur, Paul Hawken. 
• Over the course of 5 years of rigorous scientific research, they identified and modeled the 100 most substantive, already existing solutions for addressing global warming and revealed astounding news: that it is possible not just to slow global warming, but to actually reverse it by 2050.

Links to the handouts (click to see and print)

1. Drawdown Descriptions of 100 Solutions, listed by their group Sectors
2. Drawdown Solutions, listed by their group Sectors and their Ranking
3. Drawdown Suggestions on how an individual can get started with reversing global warming

March 18, 2019: Forum on Climate Change Policy in 2019: What Citizens Can Do at Federal, State & Local Levels.

• How we can make a difference regarding the climate crisis from organizations like Citizens’ Climate Lobby and Chesapeake Climate Network as well as local activists and Jamie Raskin's office.

As dire warnings abound regarding the threat of global climate change, have you stopped to examine your household’s carbon footprint?

Calculating your carbon footprint is simple, and we’ll show you how. It’s sure to be an eye-opener!

• This document gives a list of our Carbon Footprint Resources (choose PDF or Word).
• Here are our Training/Presentation slides (choose PDF or PowerPoint).

  Funding

Financial support
BFM supports a number of causes via our monthly social concerns donation box, as well as direct aid through our annual budget designations. Please click here to see the social concerns that BFM supports and how you can help with financial donations.