CANTON —the Unitarian Universalist Church of Canton voted to endorse the platform of the Poor People’s Campaign and become faith partners.

The endorsement was made by a unanimous decision by the church’s members at the end of January.

The Poor People's Campaign was founded as a revolution of values by the Rev. Dr. Martin Lu-ther King Jr. in 1968, months before his assassination. From the start, the movement was defined by the naming of the interlocking evils of poverty, racism, and the war economy, which MLK believed could not be addressed as separate issues. They sought to build a broad, fusion movement that could unite poor and impacted communities across historic lines of division.

“Today, the Poor People's Campaign picks up this unfinished work, and has added ecological devastation to the list of inseperable evils that must be confronted and transformed,” said Katie Boczarski, UU Church Communications committee. “From Alaska to Arkansas, the Bronx to the border, people are coming together to shift the moral narrative, impact policies and elections at every level of government, and build lasting power for poor and disenfranchised people.”

In St. Lawrence County nearly one in five people were living below the federal poverty line before COVID-19. The crisis of the pandemic has brought to light for many how one’s health insurance is dependent on employment.

Teresa Veramendi, Social Justice Coordinator at the UU Church, said that even those not considered “poor” by the federal government “are economically vulnerable to a single medical emergency, or are already chained to mortgage-sized student loans, or were about to get hired before COVID-19 and now have lost everything, including homes.”

Veramendi said that “the Poor People’s Campaign is the right moral fusion movement to answer the call of this moment when too many have been hurting for too long, and we can rec-ognize that everybody has a right to live.”