2014 Annual Report of the Green Team
The Green Team is an ad-hoc
committee within the Church. Its purpose is to promote good environmental
stewardship in the church's facilities, and also in our homes and the wider
community. Its activities include reducing energy consumption, and promoting
the Three R's (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle). The
committee also works to raise awareness and foster action on Climate Change. We
love people to bring new ideas. Everyone is welcome to participate!
On October 19th, we had our 2nd
annual Harvest Dinner and Cookoff, a vegetarian/low impact pot-luck dinner and
cook-off in fellowship hall. It was preceded by an Indian food cooking
demonstration by guest participant Anil Navkal.
On February 23rd, in
conjunction with Interfaith Power & Light’s Preach-In on Climate Change, we
conducted a green service with Thomas Arnold preaching, and with a number of the
children and youth reading and performing.
We hosted a Sustainable House of
Worship workshop on May 17th, with presenters from Interfaith Power
& Light, for people of all faiths to learn the best ways to reduce energy
consumption at their houses of worship. This was attended by more than 30
members from 16 different congregations in the area. In addition to support
from the American Baptist Churches of MA, and the MassUCC Conference, it was
also supported with a generous grant from South Church’s Seeds of Faith fund.
On May 11th, Terry
Ebner and Iric Rex had an outdoor children’s service with a theme and music of
sustaining God’s creation.
We created a Climate Reader, a
magazine-style collection of articles to serve as a starting point on climate
change, what needs to be done, and how it can be be solved. We also created a
South Church Green Team blog to share the Climate Reader at http://southchurchgreenteam.blogspot.com
We started the “Green Thing of the
Month” this year at fellowship hour on one Sunday each month, where we
encouraged one aspect of green living, everything from worm composting at home
to affordable LED light bulbs.
We helped make the all-church
picnic a “green” event again this year by setting up and demonstrating how
throw away trash can be greately reduced by composting food waste, paper
products and recycling. And that it’s easy to do once you see how!
We had a “green gifts” table in
Fellowship Hall during Christmas season. The proceeds from this sale went
to support South Church's membership in Mass Interfaith
Power & Light.
Co-chairs Mark Bohrer and Candy
Dann
