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Mercer Island UCC communicates with its community

The Congregational Church of Mercer Island United Church of Christ set what it thought was a lofty goal of 5,000 pairs of socks for its 2025 Sock Drive for Operation Nightwatch in Seattle, uncertain that it could collect that many.

Mercer Island UCC speaks to community with its reader board. Photos courtesy of the Congregational Church of Mercer Island

Communicating with its reader board, word of mouth, presence and a newspaper story made a difference.

“We collected socks and funds to provide nearly 9,000 pairs from the congregation and people in the community who left socks in a wooden box outside the door under the eaves,” said Jennifer Castle, pastor there for three years.

She attributes the surge to the help of an article in the Mercer Island Reporter.

“It touched a nerve and was a meaningful way people could give,” said Jennifer, adding that funds were used to buy socks from a sock mill in Alabama.

Operation Nightwatch’s annual Sock It to Homelessness was held on Dec. 7.

The Congregational Church  on Mercer Island began the sock drive about 20 years ago. The church has approximately 100 members and is growing, adding 12 new members in 2025.

“People are hungering for meaningful community,” she said. “These times feel bleak. We have a reader board with changing messages to reflect our church’s progressive, inclusive values. It kept the Sock Drive before Mercer Island residents.”

With the church located on the main street of Mercer Island, a stable, suburban community of 25,000 on an island between Seattle and Bellevue, many people pass and read the messages, designed to provide encouragement and hope.

One recent message was, “If empathy is a sin, sin boldly!”

Once a month, about 15 volunteers stay after church to make about 150 turkey and cheese, ham and cheese, and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Those sandwiches are then delivered to Operation Nightwatch and are given to those who are hungry and unhoused on the streets of Seattle.

Commenting that the church is a wedding space for the community—doing more than 20 a year—some with her officiating and some led by others, Jennifer told of a family coming to church on a recent Sunday to check out the space. The parents stayed to help make sandwiches.

The church, which met in a middle school several years before it built its building in 1969, is also completing a landscaping project. They took $70,000 out of savings and hired a landscaper to take out the lawn and install drought resistant and drought tolerant plants. Church members have also been donating funds to offset the cost of the project.

The church expects to have significant savings in water.

In addition, in July the church will welcome a long-term preschool to use its space.

Jennifer began working part-time at Plymouth UCC in Seattle in 2005, managing volunteers. She eventually became the full-time director of faith formation. Her work and mentorship of the Rev. Dr. Kelle Brown helped her discern a call to ministry. She attended Chicago Theological Seminary for a master of divinity degree and was ordained as associate pastor at Plymouth in 2021. She was called to the Mercer Island church a year and a half later.

Jennifer grew up in San Francisco Bay Area, where she earned both a bachelor’s degree  and a master’s degree in social work. She and her husband, Don, relocated to Seattle, where they have raised children. She first worked in geriatrics, taking time off to raise her children.

“The draw of the UCC is for me is its commitment to justice, love and inclusivity. The denomination is not afraid to wrestle with the problems of our time, and it welcomes questioning,” said Jennifer, who lives in Bellevue but is active in the Mercer Island community.

For example, calling the Parks and Recreation Department to be involved with a booth at their Pride event, led the church to participate in the community’s Juneteenth, Halloween Trunk or Treat and Holiday Party in December.

“It’s great to be involved in the community so people know who we are and what we are doing,” Jennifer said.

Recently Mercer Island UCC participated with the Episcopal, Lutheran, Presbyterian and United Methodist churches in a prayer vigil gathering the community to express their concerns about a scandal at the high school more than 10 years ago that was just revealed.

“It was powerful to have a prayer vigil, and we now plan to do one quarterly,” she said. “People appreciated coming together to pray and light candles, to lament and pray for students, teachers and administrators.

For information, call 206-232-7800 or visit ucc-ccmi.org.

For information, call 206-232-7800 or visit ucc-ccmi.org.

 

 

Pacific Northwest Conference United Church of Christ News © January 2026

 

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