Rev. Peggy Clarke comes to First Unitarian Society with twenty years of experience in ministry behind her.  Rev. Clarke holds a Bachelor’s degree in Religious Studies and Peace Studies and a Masters in Historical Theology with a concentration in Medieval Mysticism from Boston College.  Her doctoral work was in American Religious History.

After school, Rev. Clarke was a campus minister at St. Anselm’s College in New Hampshire and then became a supervisor at Covenant House in NYC where she worked with homeless and runaway teens.  She briefly taught high school theology and went on to become a chaplain at Iona College where she also taught in the Religious Studies department and co-directed the Iona Spirituality Institute for ten years.

During her time at Iona, Rev. Clarke created a nationally acclaimed alternative break program which brought her around the country and abroad to teach about justice.  Some of the more significant locations include a squatters’ village in Nogales, Mexico, Lake Traverse Reservation in South Dakota and a migrant worker community in Immokalee, Florida.

After making the decision to enter Unitarian Universalist ministry, she took classes at Starr King School for the Ministry, completed an internship at the UU Fellowship in Poughkeepsie and Clinical Pastoral Education at Greenwich Hospital.  She was ordained in October 2010.

Rev. Clarke is the co-founder of InterGenerate, a local non-profit dedicated to food justice and the encouragement of local resourcing.  InterGenerate has founded a community garden in Mt. Kisco, another in Chappaqua, a communal garden in Katonah and this year launched the Heritage Egg Co-op at John Jay Homestead.  Committed to creating equal access to food that’s good, clean and fair, InterGenerate supplies the Westchester Food Bank and is working in partnership with the Westchester Land Trust and local farmers to design a new model for farmers markets in low-income neighborhoods.  Peggy is currently a member of the Board of the Westchester Anti-Racism Alliance and is a GreenFaith Fellow.  Having served on the Ethical Eating Core Team that wrote the Unitarian Universalist Statement of Conscience on Ethical Eating which passed with a strong majority during General Assembly, 2011, she now serves on the national team working to implement our stated values.  In addition, Rev. Clarke is the Social Justice Consultant for the NY Metro District.