Erica Lucille Ward has been Director of Religious Education at First Unitarian Church since the fall of 2007. She has primary responsibility for the religious education program for children and youth, including curriculum, development, and administration, working in close cooperation with the Senior Minister and the Religious Education Council.

Erica is a lifelong UU, who grew up in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin and attended Unitarian Universalist Church West in Brookfield, Wisconsin. She grew up in the UU RE program, was in her church’s child and adult choirs, was active in her high school youth group, and attended the Central Midwest District’s high school youth conferences.

From 2006-2007, Erica served in Americorps through a nonprofit called City Year, where she tutored 7th and 8th graders at a low-income K-8 school in west Philadelphia. While living in Philadelphia, she was active in the choir and young adult group at the First Unitarian Church of Philadelphia.

Erica has an affinity with and love for UU camps and conference centers.
She grew up going to Star Island, a UU conference center off the coast of Portsmouth, New Hampshire. In the summer of 2007, she worked as a counselor at Unirondack, a UU camp in the Adirondacks Mountains of New York.