The Creative Sageing Award is given to a UURMaPA member for their outstanding service and creativity in pursuing new or continued ventures after retirement and building on one’s experience in creative ways. This might involve, for example, mentoring, public service, fostering spiritual growth, writing/publishing, creating and or participating in community and denominational service projects and organizations.
The 2026 Creative Sageing Award was presented to Betty Stapleford in recognition of her persistent volunteer service on behalf of immigrants and marginalized people during her years of active ministry and retirement in Southern California.
Betty initially embraced Unitarian Universalism in the 1960s in Atlanta, GA, because UUs were walking their talk concerning racial justice and civil rights. This established a trajectory of championing those experiencing social injustice throughout her ministerial career. About 15 years ago, when Betty was serving as minister at the UU Fellowship of the Conejo Valley near Thousand Oaks CA, some members of the congregation initiated a project to transport visitors to the Adelanto Detention Center, which houses immigrants in the Mojave Desert over two hours away. Many family members of those detained had no way to travel to the facility.
Betty was moved by the plight of people held in detention not because they were criminals but because they lacked the necessary papers. She began driving people out to Adelanto each month to visit detainees and support their family members in doing so. The project now also posts bond, when possible, or provides assistance when people are released from detention. After release or deportation, some former detainees have kept in touch with Betty, whom some of the younger ones call “Ma.”
Betty is active in other service organizations in her area northwest of Los Angeles, including Ventura County CLUE (Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice), working for racial justice and affordable housing, as well as 805 UndocuFund, and IOOVC, committed to getting ICE out of Ventura County. She has regularly attended, and sometimes spoken at press conferences and immigration rallies—and even made sure to be there in a wheelchair when she had a broken foot.
After retiring from ministerial leadership at the Conejo Valley congregation, Betty served the UU Church of the Verdugo Hills in La Crescenta and then as the affiliate Community Minister for Social Justice at the UU Church of Santa Paula, whose Social Concerns Action Committee has continued to increase its activity with food banks and other programs for this diverse community. She regularly drove for the Adelanto project in the years leading up to the COVID epidemic, during which the 1400-person Detention Center emptied out. After the COVID hiatus, she has resumed her monthly trips out to Adelanto.
“Visiting can be heartbreaking, hearing stories of how detainees got there,” she observes. “Many are asylum seekers. Medical care and food are terrible; all creature comforts are missing. At least we can offer compassion and listening ears—and see what’s going on at the Center.”
The churches in Betty’s community have become central to resistance and to supporting one another. At age 83, Betty continues her lifelong commitment to advancing justice through continuing visitation to the Adelanto Detention Center and to advocacy for immigrant justice in Ventura County in the face of increasing anti-immigrant activities by the federal government. For consistently walking her talk and living out her UU values and commitments, we are pleased to honor Betty Stapleford with our 2026 Creative Sageing Award.
Award Recipients receive a $500 honorarium from UURMaPA. We encourage all UURMaPA members to consider who you might want to suggest for these awards in the future, possibly including yourself. UURMaPA is a talented group of retired ministers and partners. There are many individuals within our membership who are worthy of recognition, but too often organizations fail to recognize their valuable participants.
Over the years, the Unitarian Universalist Retired Ministers and Partners Association has instituted these awards in order to highlight the contributions of our members to UURMaPA and to the larger world. We invite you to go to our website to read about past award recipients.
Respectfully submitted by Charles J. Stephens, UURMaPA Vice-President