Kenosha Green Congregation: Green Christmas and Recycling systems at Home and Church.
Prepare by reading this excellent resources for a Green Christmas by Polly Waara. Click here.
Fall meeting: Sunday, October 21, 4:00-5:30, Trinity Lutheran Church, 7104 39th Ave.,
Racine Green Congregation: No fall meeting
Winter meeting: Time and Place and program TBA.
Welcome our new members: Islamic Environmental Group of Wisconsin, Saint Luke's Episcopal Church , and the Racine Interfaith Coalition.
Featured Projects (Spring and Summer, 2012)
Lent February 22 to April 8: Meatless Mondays or Veggie Mondays (Spring/ Lent, 2012)
Racine Green Congregations join in observing a discipline for six weeks in the late winter and early spring of 2012 or as a 2012 Lenten Discipline for those congregations observing Lent. The congregations will seek to enlist individuals and families to observe one day a week with a meatless meal, designed to reduce the carbon emissions that come from the raising of aniumals for food and also to contribute the money you save to a charity of your choice for hunger relief. Last year several churches raised hundreds for hunger causes.
Click here for the full resources for obsering Meatless Mondays for six weeks: Introduction, prayers, recipes, facts about hunger. Click here for just meatless recipes.
We invite others to contribute meatless recipes that we will post on the site to David Rhoads at drhoads@lstc.edu.
Carbon Fasting for Lent. The United Church of Christ in Massachusetts sponsors an ecumenical carbon fast for Lent. If you sign up, you will receive each day via e-mail an insopirational message and a suggested activity for reducing your carbon output. The sign-up for 2012 is at: http://www.macucc.org/pages/detail/2410. Earth Day 2012. Earth Day falls on a Sunday this year. So it is a grand opportunity for congregations to celebrate their commitment to care for creation with worshipp and educational events. Christian communities can check out the resources at the National Council of Churches site at http://nccecojustice.org/earthday/. Mother's Day, May 13, 2012.
Celebrate Mother Earth's Day. Lat year, Trinity United Methodist held a panel of garden specialists promoting healthy gardening practices to honor Mother Earth. Att Resurrection Lutheran, they planed trees. Be creative. Find a way to celebrate and honr earth on Mother's day!
Arbor Day, April 27, 2012:
Plant Trees. This year, celebrate Arbor day by planting trees on yourchurch property and by encouraging members to plant trees. Visit the Arbor day website for ideas and information, consult with the city arborist or other local expert, and learn more about the beauty of trees and the value of trees and forests for the support of life on our planet. Get 10 free trees: www.arborday.org.
Father's Day Project, June 17, 2012: Collect Neckties for Quilts: Collect old ties and contribute them to Prairie Moon Quilts (www.prairiemoonquilts.com), which makes quilts from the ties and contributes the quilts and the proceeds to charities. Last year, Olympia Brown Unitarian Universalist Church and Trinity United Methodist did this project and collected hundreds of ties. Send the collected ties to Prairie Moon Quilts: Necktie Project, 31763 Intrepid Road, Macon, MO 63552. For more information, contact Jeff Sytsma at jeff12759@aol.com. Consider this project for Father's Day, June 19. Transportation Month (May or June)
As part of our monthly emphasis, RGC offers resources to observe transportation month. Last year, Resurrection Lutheran Church observed a month-long emphasis on transportation as a means to live simply and to reduce carbon use. Check out all the resources--information, study guide, bulletin announcements, suggstions for congregation and home, and a letter template to send to representatives--under "Projects" on the side bar. See what Resurrection did with bicycles, smart cars, and more. Transportation month at Resurrection.
Celebrate the Season of Creation (September, 2012). Lasty year, four of our congregations observed the Season of Creation this year with worship and educational programs: Emmaus, Lutheran, Holy Communion, Resurrection Lutheran, and St. Andrew. Now is the time to get on board for this season focusing on God the creator and care for creation.To prepare for this, click on the section on the sidebar called "Resources," where you will find all the resources needed for worship committees, preachers, and education committees to plan and carry out this important season of the church year.
| News Items (Summer, 2012)
Showing of Gasland on July 9 at Bradford UU in Kenosha Monday July 9 from 7:00 to 9:00 PM, Bradford Unitarian Universalist Church in Kenosha (5810 8th Ave.) will show the highly acclaimed documentary feature exposing the dangers of hydrolic fracking, Gasland, followed by discussion. It is free and open to the public. Mondays July 16 and 23 will follow with a two-part Northwest Earth Institute (www.nwei.org) class, Powering a Bright Future. Powering a Bright Future is a two-session discussion course exploring issues related to energy use, and what we can do to take action as individuals and communities interested in promoting energy sustainability. The classes will take place in the Emerson room at Bradford Church from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. Those interested in the two week class need to contact Trudy Farrell at trudymf@ameritech.net to sign up. There is a $10 charge for reading materials that are published by the NWEI. Hydraulic fracturing (also known as hydrofracking, fracking, fracing, or fraccing) is a water-intensive industrial process that drillers use to collect the natural gas held in shale formations. Shale gas has become an increasingly important energy resource in the U.S. Fracking fluid contains water, salt, sand, and hazardous industrial chemicals. This fluid is injected at high pressure underground into geologic formations. The salty water, sand, and chemical mixture forces natural gas up through the well bore to the surface for collection through pipelines. Although industry sources say fracking is safe, a new study published in the journal Ground Water predicts that the highly toxic fluids used in fracking can migrate to aquifers within a few short years. If you are interested in this topic as well as energy policy in general, join us at the Bradford UU church in Kenosha for the showing of Gasland and for the two part NWEI series exploring energy issues. FREE ELECTRONIC RECYCLING Racine Habitat ReStore is now providing no charge electronic recycling at 2302 DeKoven Ave. Deliver electronic items to ReStore, located in the Kranz building one block east of Taylor Ave. It is open Tuesdays and Thursdays, 10 to 4 and Saturdays 9 to 4.
Electronic recycling service has been added to to the ReStore mission of selling donated new and used construction materials, household furniture, major appliances and fixtures. All proceeds are used to build and rehab Habitat homes in Racine.
Accepted electronics include TVs and monitors, computers / laptops and parts, peripherals, printers, stereos, video and audio recorders, phones, typewriters, video game consoles and more. Questions: call 262 898 2929 Lois Solberg, Mgr.
Earth Day Celebration (Sunday, April 22, 2012): St, Andrew Lutheran Church will host Clayton Daughbaugh, Mid West representative of the Utah Wilderness Society. Clayton will preach the sermon at the Sunday Moning earth Day Service and hold an hour-long forum at the church beginning at 10:15. The public is welcome to attend. To plan your own Earth Day celebrations, consult the extensive ideas, resources and planning checklist from the NCC Eco-Justice Task Force websit http://nccecojustice.org/earthday.
Bird City USA: Racine has qualified to be declard a "Bird City" by the organization Bird City USA. To see the criteria for this selection, go to www.birdcitywisconsin.org. See the Journal Times article on April 8, 2011.
Racine Marinas Certified as "Green." All four of Racine's marinas--Reefpoint, LakeShore Towers, Gaslight Pointe, and the racine Yacht Club have been certified as clean marinas by the recently formed Wisconsin Marina Association. For news and a guidebook, go to www.wisconsincleanmarina.org. See also the Journal Times article on April 3, 2011.
WE Energies Energy Efficiency Program for Congregations.
WE Energies offers congregations free energy audits, reports with recommendations, some free energy saving devices, and many incentives on products to reduce energy. This is a no brainer!! Even if you have done this longer than three years ago, it is worthwhile doing it again and taking it to the next level. There is nothing to lose and everything to gain. At our RGC meeting on Saturday May 1 at 8:30 (see details above), Jon Young, the Souteastern WI point person for this program, presented a power point about this initiative. Invite property people and trustees. For more information, click here and go to the WE Energies Web site link for small businesses.
Wild Root Market: Developing a New Food Co-op in Racine.
Camela Langendorf has requested support from faith-based groups in the effort to establish a cooperative grocery store in Racine to provide fresh, local, and organic food. See the attached letter of request to RGC to spread the word and complete a survey that would assist in bringing about the vision for the Wild Root Market. For more information go to www.wildrootmarket.com.
Green Congregations--A Growing Movement.
An article by Sister Brenda Walsh: Racine Dominican
Catholic Bishops and leaders of many other faith traditions have talk about care for the earth as a moral responsibility. (Read the whole article) |