July 01, 2025
Shaw Local
NewsSubscribePrep SportsFriday Night DriveObituarieseNewspaperStarved Rock CountryLocal EventsGames and Puzzles

Open Table United Church of Christ unveils banner highlighting diversity

“A just world for All.”

By Michael Urbanec
The banner created by artist Mike Chiu outside Open Table UCC at 910 Columbus St. in Ottawa.

The banner created by artist Mike Chiu outside Open Table UCC at 910 Columbus St. in Ottawa. (Michael Urbanec)

Open Table United Church of Christ, located at 910 Columbus St. in Ottawa, has a new banner held up by a steel frame depicting it’s vision for the world: “A just world for all.”

The church previously displayed road facing signage with an affirming, supportive slogan or art but in the rising tensions of last year, the signs became a target for vandals. In June of last year, vandals made efforts to remove and damage signs made in support of anti-racist stances that included a sign in support of Black Lives Matter.

Pastor Jennifer Amy-Dressler said members of the church met every month for several months to discuss how they were going to show their stance in a way that would stand up to these attacks while keeping their motto of “extravagant welcome.”

“The idea that came to fruition is this banner so we could have a public, visible witness to our stance the way the signs before had been but we also wanted to broaden to cover all kinds of diversity,” Amy-Dressler said. “That’s the core identity of our church.”

The banner was commissioned to artist Mike Chiu, who created the banner depicting multicultural people looking out into the horizon.

Amy-Dressler said it was important to the church to commission an art piece from an artist that was a person of color and a member of the LGBTQ community.

“Heather Francis had met Mike at a church-sponsored sing along several years ago with his husband, Justin, who is from this area originally,” Amy-Dressler said. “She met with Mike again and followed up with him on the designs for Youth Outlook’s posters and business cards, then again to see if he was interested in working with us.”

Amy-Dressler said she hopes people can see the sign and get a sense of how broad community really is.

“That’s race, that’s gender, that’s sexual orientation and ability,” Amy-Dressler said. “Some people are more obvious than others and people struggle because the way we’ve set up the world doesn’t meet their particular needs.”

Open Table UCC unveiled the banner on Aug. 21.