First Unitarian Church of Toledo
(Unitarian Universalist)
Green Sanctuary Committee
More Information on the conference
Through an initiative by the Social Justice Board of the First Unitarian Church of Toledo, approved by the Board of Trustees at their meeting in January, 2009, we are working toward becoming certified as a Green Sanctuary by the UUA. Our current location has advantage of more land and a smaller building, we have many opportunities to meet the spirit of the Seventh Principle of the UUA in our decisions and activities. Realizing that this initiative will involve the entire congregation, we welcome ideas from all.
ACTION PLAN
WORSHIP AND CELEBRATION
Goals:
To increase the use of environmental themes in our worship services
To increase interest and excitement about making our lives greener as a church and as individuals
Project 1
The musical Put on Your Green Shoes will be presented during a Sunday service. This will be an intergenerational production, tentatively scheduled for the 2010-2011 program year, with some of the songs used in services during the 2009-2010 program year.
Project 2
A worship service will be built around the Green Rule poster and handbook. This will be a service that looks at what various faiths have to say about the environment, to "discover the sacredness of creation within the world’s faith traditions." We will also share what other faiths are currently doing to address environmental concerns. This is tentatively planned for spring of 2010.
RELIGIOUS EDUCATION
Goals:
To increase the level of awareness about environmental issues and to highlight this as a congregational concern.
To provide information that will help inform our decisions as we strive to become more environmentally responsible
Project 3
A series of programs with environmental themes will be presented in spring, 2010 for children’s Religious Education, each topic adjusted for the various age groups. The topics will be:
Air: Why it’s necessary for life; why we need clean air
Water: Why it is important to our bodies; why we need clean water
Soil: The importance of soil to our food and environment
Rocks/Geology: Our Earth + Sun = Life
The importance of the watershed – a 3-dimensional hands-on model will be used to demonstrate how an entire watershed is impacted by various forms of pollution
Project 4
A youth garden with a vegetable section and a butterfly plant section will be created in the spring of 2010. There will be a hands-on demonstration of worm composting. Vegetable plants will be started during RE classes in early spring, and the garden will be planted in April/May. Some harvesting and preparing of food will be incorporated into Sunday morning RE.
Project 5
Adult RE will offer a series of classes on Sunday mornings or during the week. These will include speakers as well as films followed by discussion, over a two year period, including:
A presentation on Greening your Home
A presentation on toxins in the environment
Information about the safe disposal of prescription drugs
Information on home energy audits
Canning for the year-round locavore
A class on composting
Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur speaking about strengthening the connection between farmers and city dwellers to the benefit of both, with information on a local gleaning project
Baldemar Velasquez from the Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC) speaking about migrant workers, and some of the hidden costs of our cheap food
Mike Szuberla from Toledo Grows, speaking about Community Gardens, and their initiative that brings gardening and youth offenders together
Going Green: A Personal Journey from Home to Profession to Community by Michael Reed, Ph.D.
ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE
Goals:
To bring the congregation information about environmental justice issues
To help us see the connection between environmental degradation and social justice
Project 6
Create a group from church to participate in the local gleaning program. We will partner with this ongoing program by the Maumee Watershed District Office of the United Methodist Church and a local Food Bank. We hope to start this year with a few interested people, then next year organize a group to be on-call when gleaning opportunities are announced. The adult RE presentation by Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur will tie in with this project. Gleaning (Coordinated by Tahree Lane and Karen Porter)
Project 7
Join with Partners for Clean Streams in their annual clean your streams day. Data is collected at this event on what types of solid waste is picked up. This data is then used to help design appropriate regulations to address the problems found. This might lead to a future presentation at church on what was found. The target participant will be age 13 through adult. Because of the short time frame, the big organizing effort will be September of next year, though a low-key information campaign may be done this year in case some want to participate now.
Project 8
Partner with Toledo Grows in their program that matches mentors with at-risk youth, soliciting members of the congregation to volunteer to work with local inner-city young people in community gardens. This will begin this fall, hoping to build upon our efforts the following year. Adults who have gardening and carpentry or other skills to share, will be encouraged to give their time in this program. Speaker Michael Szuberla from Toledo Grows will speak at an adult RE class, helping to build interest in this program.
SUSTAINABLE LIVING
Goals:
To encourage lifestyle changes in members of the congregation, helping us all see where we can take steps to help the environment
To make changes to our building and grounds, moving to reduce our carbon footprint over time
Project 9
Institute energy conserving changes within the building that have been identified in the building audit, as finances allow. This will include:
Purchasing insulating window treatments for all windows
Adding an insulating jacket to the water heater
Replacing light switches with motion detectors in more rooms
Putting locks on thermostats
Project 10
Create purchasing and practice policies to be submitted to the Board of Trustees for review and comment, in hopes that at the end of the process the congregation will approve policies that help us green our practices. This will involve looking at chemicals and cleaning products used, with the goal of moving toward the use of better alternatives. Recycled and post-consumer product purchases will also be investigated with recommendations made to the Board in the future.
Project 11
Organize Green Sundays, beginning with 3-4 this year, with the hope of expanding the number in future years. A Green Sunday will have the following features:
Serve vegetarian food at our regular after service meal, using organic and local foods as much as possible
Set the goal of a zero trash Sunday. Everything will be reused, recycled, or composted as much as possible.
Members will be encouraged to walk, bike, or carpool to church (using our recently created zip code directory to find carpooling partners)
Bring your own table service or pay a surcharge to cover the purchase of compostable or post-consumer recycled products. Bags with a table setting that can be used at future Sunday meals will also be offered for sale.
Project 12
A native plants area will be created in a current grassy space by the front entrance of the church. This could serve as an educational area for the congregation, with plants labeled and information provided as to why growing native plants is important. This will be started this fall and added to in the spring. In future years we hope to expand on this idea, incorporating native plants into other parts of our landscape.
LOOKING TO THE FUTURE:Our committee has identified other projects that we hope to put into place in the future, beyond this current action plan. These include:
Partner with the church next door (Church of God of the Apostolic Faith) in some of our green initiatives, sharing information about the Green Sanctuary program outlined by the UUA, and doing joint projects. We have arranged to share parking space, allowing both churches extra parking without adding paving.
Create several "Curricula in a box" with an environmental theme for each children’s RE class level, allowing anyone to present the material on any particular Sunday, hoping to increase the number of environmentally themed RE classes.
Access more 3-dimensional models, to demonstrate water treatment, landfill, etc.
Find speakers on other environmental topics, such as Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs), bio-fuels, storm water issues, etc.
Collect at church or provide clear information for recycling Compact Fluorescent Lights (CFLs), electronic waste, paint etc.
We will develop an overall plan for our actions and educational activities so that they lead to the development of a global understanding of the inherent social justice in building a sustainable world for all its inhabitants. It is important that our Green Sanctuary participants begin to understand the global issues and develop an ability to think critically about sustainability. It is desirable that the local activities we undertake lead to an ability to understand the global environmental system and an ability to envision positive changes to the system. This requires estimating the costs and consequences, making changes and observing the actual consequences. Small incremental local changes have an impact, but the participants need to develop an awareness of the dimensions of the overall situation, an appreciation of the scale of the actions necessary to bring about the desired global changes, and the tradeoffs required to reach global goals. In the final measure, weighing costs versus social justice will not have a right answer, but it will benefit us all if the global decisions we help to make reflect a "Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part".
Native Plants Garden (Coordinated by Leitha Sackman) Green Sundays (Coordinated by Karen Porter and Tahree Lane) Policies (Coordinated by Paul Perry) Building Improvements (Coordinated by Allan Brown, with the Building and Grounds Committee) Youth Offenders Gardening Project (Coordinator: Woody Trautman)Clean Waters Project (Coordinator: Woody Trautman)Adult Religious Education (Coordinator: Karen Porter with the Minister of Lifespan Religious Education and the Religious Education Council) Youth Garden Project (Coordinators: Ginny Blair Van-Hoy; Kathy Kraynak) Youth Environmental Education (Coordinator: Louise Bankey) Green Rule (Coordinator: Judy Trautman) Put on Your Green Shoes (Coordinator: Ylisse Yepez)
Green Sanctuary Committee Members
Louise Bankey
Nancy Mooney
Lisa Blake
Paul Perry
Ginny Blair-VanHoy
Karen Porter
Allan Brown
Steve Perlmutter
Kathy Kraynak
Leitha Sachmann
Tahree Lane
Bill Saunders
Carol Lehmann
Michael Swartzfager
Beth Marshall
Judy and Woody Trautman
Dana Martin-Hayden
Tony Wilgus
Doug Nims
