by Paul Gibb
Which of our members was born in Boulder, grew up in Boulder, and after college came back to this area, where she has been ever since, all her time working for non-profits, along with raising her two kids (of which she says, “that is work that is also for a non-profit but not always recognized as such”)? And who has spent quite a bit of time working here at the Fellowship, both as a paid day camp director and as a frequent volunteer? If you’d have guessed Rachel Setzke (even if you hadn’t seen her name at the top of this piece), you’d have been right.
Rachel was born in August 1977 at Boulder Community Hospital. Her parents, she says, were both very friendly and well-educated. Her mom got a degree in computer science and was a CPA who ran her own tax business home and who also found time to be involved in politics, including equal rights and local campaigns. Her dad was an electrical engineer who worked for Storage Tech. Rachel remembers “visiting his office in the middle of nowhere, and now I live in the middle of that nowhere – in Louisville.”
As a child, she struggled at first at school and repeated first grade, but then became and remained a top student. She played piano and soccer, loved dogs, and fondly remembers playing outside with the neighbors on their cul-de-sac. When she and her husband Dave met and started dating as adults, they realized that one of those kids Rachel used to play with had been Dave’s best friend growing up. She also loved skiing and camping in the mountains. In the summers, she often visited her grandparents in Wisconsin and spent time on the lake or in the woods with cousins.
She studied sociology at Beloit College in Wisconsin and spent a semester in Costa Rica, living in San Jose and touring the country with classmates. “My Spanish was pretty good back then,” she says, “but it’s gotten kinda rusty – I mostly speak it only when I’m helping my kids, Aidan and Lilianna, with their Spanish – or chatting with Lilianna.”
After college she worked six years for the Colorado Nonprofit Association, then, after staying home with her kids, she got two part-time job offers. One was as the Day Care Coordinator at the Fellowship, which was “super-fun.” The other was with a transportation management organization that helped people “find carpools and bus routes and things like that.” Four years later she went back to school for a graduate certificate in environmental management, policy, and law. While in grad school she volunteered for Eco-Cycle’s carbon farming citizen science study, where she learned about the policy work Eco-Cycle does. “I wanted a job that connects nonprofits, businesses, and governments to find climate solutions, and doing policy work at Eco-Cycle was a perfect match.” She’s been the senior policy and research associate there since 2019, working three to four days a week.
Her childhood religion was Methodist. “My mom thinks it’s fabulous that one of my strongest childhood memories was of a sticker in the church ladies’ room that said ‘Waste not, want not; please turn off the light.’ That made so much sense to me, and I’ve been working to promote that idea ever since.”
Rachel came to BVUUF when she was pregnant with her first child, Lilianna, around 2006. Her childhood home was in the same neighborhood as UUCB, shere she attended preschool and Girl Scout meetings. Years later, she helped with a presentation the Nonprofit Foundation was holding at the First Universalist Church in Denver, where her boss, a spunky little woman from Texas who was a Baptist but was more spiritual than religious, told her, “You would like the UU church, it’s right up your alley.” And so, when she was pregnant with Lilianna and knew she was going to leave the working world, she and a friend went church shopping in Lafayette. “We went to Flatirons first and were terrified by the sermon that day. Next we went to the Fellowship. And for me it was the right fit.” That was also about the time when Rev. Lydia arrived here, and Lilianna was part of Lydia’s first child dedication service at BVUUF.
Since then Rachel has served on Children and Youth Religious Education group (CYRE), Committee on Shared Ministry (COSM), Service Associates, the auction (the last one she co-chaired took place about two weks before Aidan was born), and, finally, a parenting book group.
What Rachel loves most about the ‘Ship is “the focus on justice and then on action. Recognizing that we don’t know what happens after this life, we should make the best world we can, here and now.”
And she also loves “the people and the commitment. Sometimes I feel overwhelmed with everything happening in the world and knowing that there are people at the Fellowship committed to working on so many of the problems is a bit of a balm to me.”
Here is how she felt when she heard Rev. Lydia’s recent announcement that she is retiring: “I was very sad. But 16 years in a position like that, where she gives so much, is a lot. I admire that she’s been with us as long as she has, and I very much value what she’s brought to the Fellowship. I can totally understand that retiring is something she needs to do to find something different. She will be missed for sure.”
Rachel’s and Dave’s house barely survived the Marshall Fire, but had smoke damage and they had to live in a hotel for three months. “We felt very cared for by the Fellowship during that time. A pastoral care person from the ‘Ship checked in every week and friends brought us food and went for walks with me.”
Published December 12, 2023
