Our UU Congregation was founded in 1994, and we’ve been in our current building since 2001.

Here is a brief timeline: (with thanks to Liz Fitzsimmons and Marty Daniels)

November 1993 – 22 people met at the home of Douglas Coffin and Kerstin Engman to talk about the possibility of starting a UU church. Coffin then placed an ad in the local paper and 64 people attended the second meeting.

January 1994 – an organizational meeting was held the last Sunday of January at St. Margaret’s Episcopal Church. 65 attended.

February 13, 1994 – The first service was held at the Belfast Dance Studio with 49 in attendance. Jill Saxby, then a seminary student, led the service and later became the first part-time minister.

November 4, 1994 – UU Belfast held a Charter Sunday Celebration n the Abbot Room of the Belfast Free Library. Forty-eight People signed the membership book. The church started meeting every other week at the Belfast Dance Studio.

October 21, 1995 – The Unitarian Universalist Association Board of Trustees approved UUCB’s application for affiliation.

In 1995, Jill Saxby, a recent graduate of Bangor Theological Seminary, became the quarter-time minister.

September 1996 – Rev. Katherine “Kitsy” Winthrop became UUCB’s next quarter-time minster, staying until the summer of 1997.

August 1997 – Jennifer Innis, in her last year at Harvard Divinity School, became the full-time minister for one year.

1998 – Renovations at the library meant meeting at the sheltered workshop space at the Industrial Park, then the Dance Studio, then, in November 1999, the cafeteria/auditorium/gym at East Belfast School.

Autumn 1999 – Weekly worship services began. Previously there were two per month, alternating with discussion groups. The groups were often led by Jan Anderson, Linda Buckmaster, Jane Dopheide, Kathy Muzzy, Sumner Roberts, Mike & Margie Shannon, and Judith Simpson.

September 2000 – The congregation moved back to the now-renovated Abbot Room at the Belfast Free Library.

2001 – Pam Gross, a student at Bangor Theological Seminary, became our quarter-time minsiter. She stayed for nine years.

2001 -The congregation rented and moved into the former United Methodist Church at 37 Miller Street.

2001 – The church was designated a “Welcoming Congregation” by the UUA.

April 21, 2002 – The congregation voted to purchase the building at 37 Miller Street. The price of the 1859 structure was $80,000. The UMC removed the pipe organ to install in their new church building on Mill Lane in Belfast.

January 2003 – The congregation was certified a “Green Sanctuary” by the UUA.

Congregational meeting in the old first-floor sanctuary. 2008 – The congregation developed a seven-year, long-range plan.

2009 – Mary Wellmeyer was hired as the half-time, interim minister. She convinced us that if we wanted to attract a quality candidate for minister, we would need to commit to hiring one full-time. This was a big step for us – Pam Gross was only one-quarter time and we had always enjoyed a variety of lay-led services. But we agreed, and Mary became full-time for her second year (2010-2011).

2011 – We “called” DeanePerkins as our next full-time minister. This was the culmination of a process that began as soon as we hired Mary Wellmeyer, which she lead us through. To find out more about that process, contact Jane Dopheide, Jan Anderson, or Sarah Nicholson – they all served on the call committee.

2011-2018 – Under Rev. Deane Perkins, we really grew our Religious Exploration program, including the Youth program, which sent groups of teens and accompanying UU adults to New Orleans to help with Hurricane Katrina recovery and to Guatemala to volunteer with an organization called Safe Passage that works with children and their families who work in the Guatemala City dump. Each group of youth spent three years raising money for these trips with fundraising dinners, sales, and other activities. Deane also spearheaded the effort to expand the church. Under his leadership, the congregation explored options for increasing our usable space, including adding an addition and buying another small building for the church offices. Eventually we settled on restoring the interior of the church to its original full two-story configuration. The Methodists had moved their sanctuary to the first floor in the 1931, and only a small area of the second floor was usable space. By completely gutting the interior, saving only the exterior walls and the staircases at the front, we gained a full second story with a larger sanctuary and added space on the first floor for offices and RE classrooms. Deane also began our partnership with the Ellsworth and Castine UU churches. We shared interns for several years, including our current minister, Amy McCormick, who served as intern of the three congregations in 2015-2016.

The church interior during the 2016 reconstruction.
– looking toward the front entrance.2016 – The interior of the church was gutted in the summer of 2016. We moved our offices to 9 Field Street (the red & white building) and held services at the Eastside School for one year. We moved back into the renovated building in the summer of 2017, although work on floors, lighting, outside space, and windows continues to this day.

2018 – Rev. Steve Eddington became our interim minister in 2018 as Deane retired. He was meant to serve for two years, but was not a good fit for our congregation and served only one.

2019 – After working with the UUA for a year on a process for moving forward, we hired Rev. Amy Fiorilli (later Amy McCormick) on a one-year contract in 2019. She was still in the process of completing her divinity degree. She was ordained and formally “called” as full-time pastor in 2021.