by Tiffany Wilson, St. Marks, Harvey, as originally published in the June 2019 issue of Churchwork
We built an organic community garden in the front yard of our church using mostly repurposed materials. It is surrounded by a brightly colored picket fence and open to all. The garden is evolving and growing each season. It also houses our compost bin.
There is a Little Free Library on the fence of our community garden and we have plans to have a Little Free Pantry by the end of the year.
We created a Green Team that consists of parishioners and meets monthly to implement green changes to our church and educate and inform our congregation on creation care and our responsibilities to this care. We also host guest speakers (Helen Rose Patterson and Liz Sheppard of Life City).
The Green Team hosted Sunday school for five weeks during Lent where we focused on devotionals from For the Beauty of the Earth: Daily Devotions Exploring Creation. We explored one green topic per week and had great involvement/attendees from our church family. This was awesome to raise awareness and feel more connected to the Earth. Topics included: recycling, reducing, plastics, compost, garden, and water.
The Green Team hosted Helen Rose Patterson and a scientist for a Nature Walk & Chat Field Trip to Jean Lafitte Barataria Preserve. This was on an accessible path and was well attended. It was a fun way to get people excited about creation care, become more informed on environmental issues we face locally, and create a fellowship opportunity outside of church.