The President’s Advisory Committee on Ethical Eating (PACE)

 Quick Contact Information:

Rev. Peggy Clarke, Chair

pclarke@uuma.org, 914-275-1627

         This web community is a gift to all who work for food justice, from the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) President's Advisory Committee on the UUA Statement of Conscience on Ethical Eating: Food and Environmental Justice. Representatives of hundreds of congregations  overwhelmingly passed this Statement of Conscience at the UUA's 2011 General Assembly. Our unfunded, experimental volunteer corps makes recommendations for and otherwise supports the Statement of Conscience's ongoing implementation, and consists of the following Presidential appointees:

Rev. Peggy Clarke (Chair) (pclarke@uuma.org) serves as the minister at the First Unitarian Society of Westchester in Hastings on Hudson, NY. Even though she serves full time, Rev. Clarke also serves as the Affiliated Community Minister at our congregation in Mt. Kisco, having founded a community organizing non-profit dedicated to food justice. InterGenerate is committed to building strong communities that work together to live gently on Earth and creating equal access to food that's good, clean and fair through the creation of community gardens and egg co-ops. Rev. Clarke is also a GreenFaith Fellow and has a history of working with both the Coalition of Immokalee Workers in Florida and BorderLinks in Nogales Arizona and Nogales Mexico. She also currently serves as the Racism and Social Justice Consultant for the Metro NY District.

Rev. Dr. David Breeden has an MFA from The Iowa Writers’ Workshop and a PhD from the Center for Writers at the University of Southern Mississippi, with additional study in writing and Buddhism at Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado. He also has a Master of Divinity degree from Meadville Lombard Theological School. Rev. David is an editor, author, and translator, having published many novels and collections of poetry, most recently a translation of The Gospel of Thomas. He serves as minister of the Minnesota Valley Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in Bloomington, Minnesota. He is a board member of Unitarian Universalists for a Just Economic Community and Minnesota Unitarian Universalist Social Justice Alliance. He was recently appointed to the UUA Commission on Social Witness. He owns a family farm in the southern part of Illinois.

Rev. Dr. Beth Johnson has served Palomar Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in Vista CA since 2004, and has been involved in environmental justice and animal advocacy issues for 20 years. Rev. Beth led her congregation to sponsor the first Earth Charter Community Summits in San Diego County in 2006 and 2007. Her Doctor of Ministry project for the Claremont School of Theology, “Transforming Conversations: The Voices of Animals in the Interdependent Web,” explores deep ecology, ecofeminism, and process theology, with special special attention to food production and its effect on animals and the environment. She has served on the board of the UU Animal Ministry since 2005 and currently serves as President.

Nancy King Smith serves as co-chair of the Unitarian Universalist Ministry for Earth (UUMFE) Board and also chairs the UUMFE Committee at the First Unitarian Church of Cleveland. She coordinates Bioneers Cleveland, a conference and network that is inspiring a shift to live on Earth in ways that honor the web of life, each other and future generations. She previously served ten years as Executive Director of the Nature Center at Shaker Lakes and five years as Director of the Cleveland Children's Museum.

Vicky Talbert represented the Ministry for Earth on the Ethical Eating Core team and is the former chair of the Reverence for Life Task Force. She is member of Bradford Community Church Unitarian Universalist where she led congregational efforts to obtain Green Sanctuary status in 2004. She is a retired Pediatric Nurse Practitioner and lives in Madison, Wisconsin.

Rev. Nate Walker  (currently on sabbatical) serves as minister of the First Unitarian Church of Philadelphia and is currently a doctoral candidate at Columbia University where he studies intersection of law, religion and education. In 2010 the UU World published a feature article about his advocacy with Monsanto about the ethics of genetically modified foods. Nate’s leadership on ethical eating and other justice areas has been featured in the New York Times, Mother Jones, the Village Voice, and the Chronicle of Higher Education. He delivered the 2009 John Murray Distinguished Lecture and in 2011 participated in the Minns Lectures. Nate is the co-editor of Whose God Rules? with foreword by Tony Blair and contributing chapters by Alan Dershowitz, Martha Nussbaum, Kent Greenawalt, and other dignitaries (Palgrave Macmillan 2011).

Rev. John Gibb Millspaugh (Past Chair) serves as Co-Minister of the Winchester (Massachusetts) Unitarian Society. He edited Skinner House Books' 2009 anthology on theologies and practices of justice,A People So Bold. He serves on the advisory boards of the Food Empowerment Project, Setting the Table, and the Winchester Multicultural Network. Rev. Millspaugh wrote the four workshops on “Social Justice” for the UUA Lifespan Faith Development Staff Group’s national Coming of Age curriculum, and led or co-led seven workshops on food justice at four national conferences. His thoughts on social ethics have been featured in in The Los Angeles Times, The Orange County Register, The Boston Globe, UU World magazine, and C-SPAN.   Rev. Millspaugh continues to serve as a Special Advisor to the Committee. 

The President's Advisory Committee on Ethical Eating (PACE) stands on the shoulders of the UUA Ethical Eating: Food and Environmental Justice Core Teams that ran the UUA's Study/Action process on Food Justice from 2008-2011. In addition to formal credits and copyrights, much credit goes to these Core Teams who developed much of the original material that this website compiles and updates. In addition to the above names, the following people were also instrumental in the process of writing the Statement of Conscience:

• John Dale, representing the UU United Nations Office
• Rev. Lee Devoe, representing the UU Animal Ministry
• Robette Dias, representing Diverse and Revolutionary UU Multicultural Ministries
• Rev. Dr. Lucy Hitchcock Seck, representing UUs for a Just Economic Community
• Rev. Dr. Paul Johnson, representing the UUA Commission on Social Witness
• Rev. Bob Murphy, representing the initiating congregation: UU Fellowship of Falmouth, MA
• Rev. Dr. Michael Tino, representing Allies for Racial Equity

• Maisie Taibbi and Corie White, Youth Representatives