Category Archives for "Members"

Meet Joanne Michalski”I joined the Unitarian Fellowship in Traverse City, Michigan, around 1993. After having our son Konrad in 1989, we were unable to have more children. We joined an open adoption group (never did adopt), and it was strongly suggested that we join some kind of church. I called the local UUs and spoke […]

Become a member of First Unitarian!Did you know you can become a member at any time? You can reach out to our Ministerial Resident, Michael DeSantis, to schedule a meeting to sign the book. Alternatively, you can join us during our next New Member Sunday, this Sunday, where you will be recognized alongside others who […]

Did you know you can become a member at any time? You can reach out to Reverend Mike to schedule a meeting, discuss membership commitments, and sign the book. Or you can become a member during our next New Member Sunday on September 21st, where you will be recognized with others who are becoming members […]

Meet Tim Wilson! I was born in 1948 and raised in Charleston, West Virginia, where my family was very active in our American Baptist church.  After leaving the state to attend college, that part of my life disappeared.  During a difficult time in my life, in 1986 while living in Portland, OR, I found myself […]

Meet Dione and Charles Graves! “We are Dione and Charles Graves. We have been married since 1973. We have lived in Missouri, Massachusetts, New York, and now Colorado. We were raised in the Lutheran and Roman Catholic faiths. We eventually found a community in the Unitarian Church in Ithaca, New York. In Colorado, we have […]

Meet Becky Hammond! My husband, Keith,  and I transferred our membership in 1993 from Jefferson Unitarian, where we were married, to FUSD, as we lived in Washington Park and were closer to FUSD. We both found areas of interest where we could put our energy and contribute, from Meditation Group to organizing the Auction for […]

Meet Beth Fischer! I first came to First Unitarian in 2014 after the closure of Warren United Methodist Church, where my husband and I were members for over 25 years. As we were looking for a new spiritual community, our interim minister suggested we might like First Unitarian. How right he was! Initially attracted by […]

Meet Rachel Hill! I began coming to FUSD not long after I moved to Denver in 2017. I wasn’t necessarily looking for a church at the time; I was actually just looking for a choir to join! But I grew up attending a UU church in Michigan, so coming back to a UU church felt […]

Meet Anne Severson! For a long time, I was trying to figure out my spirituality on my own. I’d left behind the Lutheran church I grew up in—grateful for the sense of ritual and community, but weighed down by beliefs that didn’t feel like mine. I loved the idea of church, but I knew, deep […]

Welcome Mitch Mazzotta! My wife one day asked if I had ever heard of the Unitarian church as she knew I grew up going to various denominational churches. My family stopped going to church after a while and while I believed there was always something more to life and our existence than just happenstance, I […]

Meet Jane Ashley I moved to Denver in 2018 from Arlington, Va., with my younger daughter, a dog and 2 turtles to be near my older daughter and her family. We lived in northeast Park Hill in a comfortable house. But in my first year here, I was meeting people around town who made unkind […]

Welcome New Member – Jessica Pettigrew I first attended a Unitarian church while a graduate student in New Haven, CT. The community became a source of support during that nourished me at that life phase. When I moved abroad to the island of Guam, I missed the Unitarian community and was thrilled to find First […]

Welcome – Clay Tillack & Bob Kendzior We met on January 1, 1998, in north suburban Chicago, where we both lived. Clay was an Intellectual Property attorney working for a large Chicago law firm, and Bob was a senior-level marketing executive working in the retail foodservice industry. We both fell instantly in love with one […]

Did you know you can become a member at any time? You can reach out to Reverend Mike to set a time to meet with him and sign the book. Or you can join during our next New Member Sunday on April 13th, where you will be recognized with others who are becoming members during […]

Welcome New Members – Paul Bowen and Judy Strong Paul Bowen and Judy Strong moved from Cincinnati to Denver last June after retiring from teaching and pain research jobs, respectively. We moved to be near family, including our new grandchild. We have been attending UU churches for about 37 years. We enjoy meeting like-minded people, […]

Welcome New Member – Emily Hazen How can we do good in this world?  What are the truths that connect world religions – not about power, control, or questions after death – but deeper traditions that celebrate and elevate the humanity which created spirituality in every culture? How can we connect and improve not only […]

Welcome New Member – Vanessa Johnston! Over the last 25 years, I’ve been an active member of all the metro Denver UU congregations, depending on where I lived. I moved downtown in the summer of 2024 and was thrilled to be close enough to attend First Unitarian regularly. I have been delighted to find like-hearted […]

“When we lived in Denver (1995 to 2005), we were active members of FUSD. (Chris chaired the Search Committee that found Mike Morran; that same year, Marsha chaired the Board.) While living in Ohio, we became snowbirds to escape Ohio’s gray skies and eventually moved full time to Florida in 2020. In Florida, we were […]

    “Marilyn and I first became UUs in 2013, joining First Unitarian Society in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. We immediately felt welcomed and made many new friends. Then we moved to Florida and connected with the UU churches in St. Petersburg, Florida, and Clearwater, Florida (we were pledging friends). In 2022, we moved back to Colorado […]

“In 2019, I retired from my position on the Departmental Appeals Board of the United States Department of Health & Human Services and decided to move from Washington, D.C., to Denver in order to be near my children and granddaughters.  I already knew about First Unitarian when I arrived here in 2022 because I had […]