Being a Good Neighbor

By Holley Rauen, RN, SWFL RESET Co-Founder

In February of 2022, the SWFL RESET Center received a grant from the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee to work with displaced Indigenous peoples in our region on issues of cultural and environmental protection.

We created a core group of 8 people to work on the curriculum from 4 different UU Congregations and the SWFL RESET Center. We took the "Being a Good Relative" course curriculum template provided by the UUSC, to our local Seminole and Miccosukee friends for feedback. They wanted us to adapt this program to the unique tribal, cultural, and environmental concerns of this very southern bioregion.

Our Indigenous Partner, Rev. Houston Cypress, agreed to work closely with us during the year, beginning with a book study discussion group of "The Indigenous People's History of the United States".

Rev. Houston Cypress

Our core group also attended the UU Texas Good Relative Course to learn and see how what was presented there would work here in SW Florida. We learned a lot. We met every Monday night for over 10 months to work on the best curriculum for our group. In the process, we changed the name to “Being a Good Neighbor" at the suggestion of our indigenous partner. Our core group and artists who supported us booked a special exclusive Everglades Airboat Eco tour of the Everglades River of Grass, Miccosukee Tree Island dwellings, and places of Ceremony with Houston and Love the Everglades Movement guides. This was a very important part of the process for our core group. Some had never been in the magnificent Everglades prior to the tour. We learned much about the fragile ecosystems and the struggle to defend and protect these vital wetlands.

Enjoying the beauty on the “Love the Everglades” tour with Houston Cypress

We sponsored two live workshops with Rev Houston Cypress, one in June and the final one as Session 5 on Feb 18, 2023. Houston attended and helped facilitate all 5 sessions with much skill and compassion. We also advertised and presented a few public zooms on the importance of culturally appropriate food security networks among displaced people, especially those living in Immokalee where the Coalition of Immokalee Workers is located.

Houston Cypress Leading Session 5 of “Being A Good Neighbor”

We reached out to 4 different UU Congregations with publicity and emails and 40 participants signed up for and most participated during the 5-Session Course. As part of our invitations to attend the program, we created a web page is now available to all our RESET followers and family for resources, updates, and calls to action. https://www.swflreset.org/being-a-good-neighbor

Follow-up surveys and resources were sent to all and commitments were made to stand with the Miccosukee and Seminoles as they put out calls to protect Big Cypress, defend the Everglades (threats from oil and gas drilling and exploration), and to stop development over sacred burial grounds and early archeological remains of tribes who were here before the Seminoles (Calusa, Seminole, Tequesta, Tocobaga and others).

We hope to continue this work over the next year and to present this revised FL curriculum not only to more UU and other congregations but to the larger community. We are very grateful for this opportunity.

 Highlights of this awesome experience:

 ●     Creation of a cohort of 50 people from 4 UU congregations interested in engaging in justice work with Florida's indigenous peoples. The full impact of this group remains to be seen, but requests for solidarity from the Miccosuckee and Seminole have begun. We will see who answers the call and what impact that will have, as we continue to work to grow the cohort.

●     Educating UUs and Climate Activists about the true history of Settler Colonialism.

 ●     Creating a more unified heart field and network of UUs that want to carry this work forward.

 ●     Connection and support from UU Justice Florida and especially working with Jan Booher as mentor and participant in the whole process.

 ●     Working closely with our Indigenous partner for a year was a deep honor and very enlightening for us all in our core group and in the bigger group as well.

 ●     Creating a deeper relationship with not only Rev Cypress but between the Love the Everglades Movement(Rev Cypress is the founder), The Miccosukee Tribe of Indians, The SWFL RESET Center, and SWFL UU Congregations. The congregations that engaged were UUC Greater Naples, UUC Fort Myers, All Faiths Unitarian Congregation and UUC of Sarasota. We would love to do this again and engage more people in each of these congregations moving forward.

 We were deeply honored that Rev Cypress chose to work with us during the entire year. This process was sometimes painful for him as well as most of us, 6 older white UUs, and our RESET President. As the year went on and we faced many challenges with cultural sensitivity, language, and our own white settler fragility. We grew closer and more tender with each other throughout the year.

When Hurricane Ian hit, 3 of us on our core team members had quite a bit of destruction and trauma - some of our homes were destroyed. We became displaced ourselves. But we persisted. The people who came to my personal aid in Fort Myers all came from different counties and all were involved with Betty Osceola's Prayer Walks to Defend the Sacred - Our Beloved Everglades Community. I believe a Miccosukee friend of mine put out the call and the people came from all over the state over the first month after the floods to shovel and muck out our ruined home. These good neighbors brought us food and water. They offered us emotional and spiritual support to help us cope. This was a living example of "Being a Good Neighbor" that happened and enabled me and us to keep this grant going even through 6 months of hardship, including contracting COVID the first week of the program. The strong Heartfield created by the core team enabled the program to move forward smoothly even though I was sick.

Pre-boarding for the Everglades tour with Houston Cypress

Our two field trips to the Everglades were transformative experiences for all of our core group and truly grounded us more deeply in this work. We are now being called by Miccosukee and Seminole tribes to stand with them to protect ancient burial sites in Miami and in Jupiter Florida. We hope we can stay in touch with everyone who has participated so far and bus everyone out to a big Earth Day Celebration at the Miccosukee Village in the Everglades.