We are all pilgrims on a journey, taking different routes to the same destination. We are all seekers on a quest, searching for that which is greater, and our relationship to it, hoping to arrive at the Ground of Our Being. Along the way, we encounter other pilgrims and share the experience in moments of sacred intersection that feed our spirit, deepen our experience, strengthen our resolve, and build community. This is the Spiritual Formation Program. And we invite you to journey with us.

There are many ways to get involved:

• Baltimore Yearly Meeting’s Spiritual Formation Retreat is in September, weekend of September 11-13 at the Claggett Center in Adamstown, MD. Scholarships are available through the Adult Spiritual Education Committee. Registration closes on August 24th.
• We invite you to participate in Spiritual Formation here at Richmond Friends Meeting with “large group” discussions and “small group” opportunities to build spiritual friendships offering mutual support and accompaniment.
• There is also the year-long online program offered through Zoom to Friends throughout the Yearly Meeting also offering large and small groups. (October-May)

If you wish to participate, a table at Potluck will be sponsored by Adult Spiritual Education Committee on September 27th. We hope you will join us to learn more!

If you have one or two hours a week to spare and would like a chance to make a meaningful contribution in the community, consider joining our team of volunteer mentors at Elizabeth D. Redd Elementary School. Most of the students at Redd come from low-income families, primarily Latino or African-American. Many are immigrants. All could benefit from a consistent friendly presence in their lives.

Mentors commit to weekly visits with assigned students in kindergarten through 5^th grade. You can choose the day and time to volunteer and which grade level you’d prefer to work with. We often meet during the students’ lunch break. Some of us meet with more than one student at a time, or meet individually with multiple students.

Whether playing games together, making art, reading or making conversation, we are helping students to build social and emotional skills that support their academic development. And we are having fun doing it!

We plan to hold an in-person orientation for new volunteers sometime in September. If you are interested in learning more about our experiences, please contact Lynda Perry, Kathryn Newland, or any of our other volunteers: Marjorie Bertolino, Mike Cluverius, Danni Kong, Mary Beth Martin, and Janet Thoroman. We will be welcoming at least two new volunteers this fall, and we hope to welcome you also.

This volunteer mentor opportunity is truly a valuable experience. Please join us!

Worship made visible: head, heart, hands & voices

Join the collaboration of QEW, Sierra Club Falls of the James Group & AFSC Love as Action for a local trash cleanup (location coming!) including breakfast snacks and a short meeting for worship!

A QEW Day of Action – twice yearly in Fall and Spring – envisions Meetings creating a locally organized community event where Friends choose an action that fits its own land, gifts, needs, and community and gather in love, listen to the Spirit, care for the land and one another, and let our worship be visible.

Why do humble actions as a community? This Day of Action is a way for Friends to:

• Bring communities together through shared labor, laughter, sweat, and love.
• Make Earthcare visible as a living Quaker witness.
• Invite neighbors, youth, families, and seekers into meaningful action.
• Deepen the spiritual connection between worship and ecological repair.
• Connect spiritually across time zones and share our stories around the world.

More information is forthcoming from Barb Adams and Diane Bowden.

Quaker Earthcare Witness (QEW) is a network of Friends (Quakers) in North America working on Earthcare concerns. We work to inspire Spirit-led action toward ecological sustainability and environmental justice and a spiritual transformation in our relationships with each other and the natural world. As all our communities are being impacted more and more by the climate crisis, we feel an urgent leading to share our witness.

Ready to focus on Nurturing Our Community: Body Mind and Spirit?

Or would you like to just picnic in the park with a few hundred like-minded folk?

Come to PeaceFest, Sunday, September 20 between 1 and 5 at the Byrd Park Roundhouse.

Richmond Friends Peace and Social Concerns is inviting all F/friends to participate!

Set up, table, make art, dance, sing, tell about how Peace Is Lived and Love Is Action. Committees, especially Religious Education and Race and Racism are invited to participate.

For close to 50 years, Richmond Peace Education Center (RPEC) has brought Richmond nonprofits and artists together in a positive, supportive, educational festival to promote peace and cooperation.  For 15 years (with a hiatus for the pandemonium) RPEC has hosted, with the support of our Meeting and other groups, a Peace Festival to celebrate the International Day of Peace.

This event is VERY family friendly! … and it will be bigger this year, with a compelling theme and truly diverse presentations bolstering “Nurturing Our Community: Body Mind and Spirit. ”

Our Meeting will have a table/booth, and we need a few folks to help set up, staff, and break it down that day. Even a couple hours would be very helpful.

Our rep to RPEC, Patricia Stansbury, can provide more information and help you find your niche in this celebration.

We will have a loose agenda for the day, mainly focused on quiet personal contemplation:

• Arrive in silence (The lodge will be open by 9:00 am)
• Brief opening circle (9:30 am)
• Group silent contemplation
• Silent nature walk
• Open time for journaling, contemplative reading, prayer, art, etc.
• Silent shared meal
• End with worship sharing

Plan to bring your lunch, and supplies for contemplative practices like journaling. Please reach out to Mason Mairead for any questions.

Here are other DEADLINES:

• Register to vote/Update registration: 10/22/2026
• Early in-person voting: 9/18/2026 through 10/31/2026
• Apply for mail-in ballot through 10/23/2026

All of the above plus finding your polling place is at:

https://vote.elections.virginia.gov/VoterInformation

On The Ballot:

Three Virginia Constitutional Amendments:

• Will provide a constitutional right to reproductive freedom, often called the right-to-abortion amendment.
• Will repeal the provision defining marriage as between one man and one woman and prohibits the state from denying a marriage license to two adult persons based on sex, gender or race.
• Will provide that persons convicted of felonies have their voting rights restored upon release from incarceration.

Vote for your U.S. Senator from Virginia:

Mark Warner (D, Incumbent) vs. Bert Mizusawa (R)

Vote for your U.S. House Representative:

Find your district https://www.vpap.org/localpolitics/

            District 1: Shannon Taylor (D) vs. Rob Wittman (R, Incumbent)

            District 4: Jason Brown II  (I), vs. Andre Odell Kersey (I), vs. Jennifer McClellan (D, Incumbent)

            District 5: Cooke Costa Harvey (I) vs. John McGuire (R, Incumbent) vs. Tom Perriello (D) vs. Chris Register (I)

Want To Work at the Polls or Have a Concern?

• Find out more at https://www.elections.virginia.gov/officer-of-elections.
• To learn more about how to be on an Election Protection Team, the largest non-partisan voter protection effort in Virginia at https://www.protectthevoteVA.org.
• Have concerns about Election Security Or Integrity at your polling site or have general questions about elections in your area, call 866-OUR-VOTE.

Prepared by Monica Shaw, clerk of the VICPP Working Group.

Examples of topics will be reserving Hollywood Cemetery plots, leaving assets to Meeting, memorial worship services, memorial receptions, memorial minutes, etc. Contact Trustee Roni Kingsley with questions.