Aug 6, Tour Sustainable Living in Monroe

Tour Monroe Sustainability
On Tuesday, Aug 6, 2013, Tour Sustainable Living in Monroe.   Come see what they have done to the buildings and gardens at the Catholic IHM Sisters Monroe Motherhouse campus in an effort that promotes sustainable living.   RSVP required by Mon, July 29th, 2013. 

First Anniversary of our Sustainability Team

First Anniversary of our Sustainability Team
FORUM cover on June 16, 2013, (Written by Kelly Gauthier).

“God’s creation is one and it is good. The concerns for non-violence, sustainable development, justice and peace, and care for our environment are of vital importance for humanity.” 
- Pope Benedict XVI at World Youth Day, June 2008

At St. Francis, we take seriously the Church’s teaching to protect people and the planet, living our faith in relationship with all of God’s creation. 

July marks the first anniversary of our Sustainability Team. 
We would like to take a moment to celebrate the tremendous work our parish has done to care for God’s creation. We piloted a Sustainability Framework for Faith Communities that was developed by Michigan Interfaith Power & Light (MI-IPL). The purpose of our Sustainability Project is to educate parishioners on the effects of warming trends globally that have the greatest impact on the poorest among us and on future generations so that we can:   

• Work together to build up the capacity of our parish and parishioners to be good environmental stewards 
• Make the needed changes in our parish and in our homes to improve our stewardship of God’s creation and reduce our carbon footprints 

If you are interested in joining the Sustainability Team, please contact Steve Lavender at slavende@att.net  or (734) 973-2564.


During this past year we accomplished: 

“Getting Started” Activities

• Gained commitment from parish leadership 
• Developed a coherent framework 
• Identified leaders 
• Created a Sustainability Team with over 30 members 
• Interviewed parish & school staff to gauge interest 
• Created a logo and tagline 
• Held a brainstorming session to generate ideas for sustainability activities 

Building the Faith Foundation
Care for Creation: Reinforced Church teachings by-

• Incorporating sustainability into Prayers of the Faithful 
• Publishing over 35 sustainability-related articles in the Forum 

Environmental Justice

• Lenten project raised over $12,000 for a Habitat for Humanity home built with sustainable practices & features 
• Holy Thursday collection raised over $2,300 for Water Missions International, (which provides clean water projects to remote locations such as in Haiti ) 
• Donated organic produce from the Parish Sustainable Garden to Perry Nursery School 

Communication / Education
Educated parishioners with:

• A Common Conference workshop on climate change 
• Presentation to Rel Ed. Confirmation students 
• RCIA presentation 

Shared our learning with the larger community:

• Presented at the annual MI-IPL conference 
• Made two presentations to regional pastors 
• Met with other local parishes for mutual learning/info sharing 

Buildings / Energy Savings 
Partnered with Better Buildings for Michigan:

• Audited the Rectory to identify residential energy savings 
• Gave parishioners discounted-cost home energy audits
• Began exploring the opportunity to obtain solar panels for the St. Francis campus 

Purchasing & Recycling: 
Diverted lots of garbage from the landfill by: 

• Using “real” dishes to feed hundreds of people at our Lenten Friday fish fries and Martin Luther King Jr. supper 
• Using recyclable/ compostable donation sacks during Lent 
• Nearly filling a Habitat for Humanity ReStore truck with donated re-usable items
• Using compostable dishes at the school’s 60th Anniversary party 
• Switching from Styrofoam to compostable cups for coffee and donuts—the church has purchased over 9,000 compostable cups since we made this change! (While not all cups are being composted, we stopped using petroleum-based cups and eliminated any health risks associated with the use of polystyrene.) 

Land & Water / Food

• Took a parish field trip to an organic farm 
• Improved the Sustainable Garden and created a new Michigan Native Plant Garden, with the goal of harvesting the seeds for future sales

Fwd: Potato Planting Project ... June 16, 2013, Forum Sustainability Corner

June 16, 2013, Forum Sustainability Corner:

(Written by Stephen Lavender)

Sustainable gardens require a sustainable supply of gardeners. Fostering a growing awareness of sustainability's importance, the St. Francis School community has embraced the parish's gardening program. The 5th grade students of Ms. Kim Verhines' class recently participated in the St. Francis Sustainable Garden's potato planting project. 

With background and instruction provided by Sustainable Garden coordinators Erich Jensen and Rose Sherry, the 5th graders spent an outdoor class session learning the basics of gardening and the specifics of planting potatoes. Working in groups of two, the students received sprouted potato sections and planted them in the garden's prepared soil.    

All gardeners know that planting is only one of many early steps in a long growing season. Individuals and families from the parish have volunteered to water and weed our sustainable gardens throughout the summer. In the fall a mature potato crop will be greeted by an equally mature group of gardeners. The 5th graders who planted in the spring will return as 6th graders this fall to experience and enjoy the harvesting of their sustainably grown produce. 

Erich captured the thoughts of our community when he commented that "sowing seeds in the garden hopefully means sowing seeds of sustainability in young minds for lifetime commitment." Wendy Lemke from St. Francis School and Patrick Sherry have also been instrumental in supporting and organizing the potato project. We thank them for their efforts and look forward to an abundant harvest this fall for distribution to Perry Nursery School families!

Rain Barrels - What a deal - Protect our Huron Watershed

Protect our Huron Watershed AND Save $$$ – Install a Rain Barrel!

What's a watershed? What's a rain barrel??

Watershed – land within which water flows down into a specified body of water. We live in the Huron River watershed.

Rain Barrel – a container used to collect and store rain water runoff from rooftops via gutters and downspouts.

Why install a rain barrel? The Huron River Watershed Council (HRWC) explains that rain barrels "…save homeowners water, energy and money by reducing summer tap water needs. The stored water can be used by homeowners to irrigate gardens and lawns where the water will slowly infiltrate into the soil and plants. In addition, rain barrels also slow the rapid flow of water entering the stormwater system—storm drains, culverts, rivers and lakes—and help reduce soil erosion and flooding."

For a VERY limited time, the HRWC and other local entities "…are teaming up to host a public sale of discount rain barrels. Purchasers can go online now through May 13 to order their rain barrels in advance for pick up Saturday, May 18, 9am-2pm at the Washtenaw County Road Commission, 555 North Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor. Rain barrels are priced at $75 for a 65-gallon 85% recycled content model in charcoal or $85 for a classic edition barrel in granite. These prices are at least 20% off regular retail prices, and without shipping charges homeowners save even more. Go to www.hrwc.org/rainbarrels to get the promotional code and purchase a rain barrel."

As an added incentive, Ann Arbor residents qualify for a quarterly stormwater credit of $1.96 simply by installing at least one rain barrel on their property. Go to www.a2gov.org/storm and click Residential credits under Stormwater Rates and Credits for details.

Act quickly to support the Huron River watershed!

Ray Digby and Steve Lavender for the St. Francis Sustainability Team  

The Evils of Being Idle

The Evils of Being Idle
By Karen Digby, member of the St. Francis Sustainability Team
found on page 10 of Forum bulletin April 7th, 2013.

    The dictionary defines the word idle as something “not in use or operation”, “not working or active”. The book of Proverbs 18:9 states, “Whoever is slack in his work is a brother to him who destroys.”  Together, both this definition and quotation perfectly describe the effects that the idling of a car has on the atmosphere.  Did you know that idling your car, even for a few minutes, is destructive to your environment, the­­ very air you breathe, and ultimately to your health?  Idling is a costly and wasteful habit too.  It has been determined that more gas is lost in the idling of a car (approximately two-tenths of a gallon per half hour) than in restarting its engine. Over 27 gallons of gas are lost annually, by idling a car, for as little as even ten minutes each day.  Additionally, the wear on the engine with each restart costs approximately $10 annually, while wear from an idling engine can cost hundreds of dollars each year, due to the damage it causes to exhaust systems, spark plugs, cylinders and other parts of the car’s engine.  Although a car can ultimately be replaced, your health and atmosphere cannot. 

     The engines of cars are created to work more effectively to combust fuel at high temperatures.  However, when idle, the car engine works at a low temperature.  This causes fuel entering the car’s catalytic converter to undergo incomplete combustion, thereby, permitting the emission of harmful complex chemical components such a nitrogen oxide, benzene, sulfur dioxide and carbon monoxide, to name a few, into the air.  When people breathe this toxic air, they suffer damaging effects to their bodies (cancer), particularly the lungs (asthma), heart and blood vessels (high blood pressure and decreased oxygen flow to heart and other tissue).  This is particularly troubling for children who breathe in more air per pound of their body weight, as compared to adults.

     So what can you do to prevent your car from being “idle”?  First and foremost, if your car will remain still (while the engine is on) for more than half a minute, turn off your engine.  Worried about a cold car when temperatures are colder?  No worries.  Cars with electronic engines are engineered to warm even more quickly when a car is being driven, compared to when it is standing still, especially if  increased speed and quick acceleration is avoided during the first three to five miles in which the car is first driven.  If waiting to pick up a passenger, use a blanket to stay warm or get out of the car and go indoors to wait.  Waiting in a running car can increase the risk of you yourself breathing in toxic fumes that can leak into your car’s interior.  As an added bonus, for every ten minutes the car engine is not idle, ten pounds of carbon dioxide will be prevented from polluting the air.

     Prevent being “slack in [your] work” to preserve your environment, fossil fuel resources, and money.  Do not let yourself become the “brother to him (fuel/carbon emissions) who destroys” the health of you and your children. You will reap what you sow both now and for generations to come.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/idleness

http://www.openbible.info/topics/idleness

http://www.makealeap.org/idling_myth

http://www.greencalgary.org/take-action/campaigns/idle-free-campaign/learn-more-about-idling/health-effects-of-idling/

http://www.edf.org/transportation/reports/idling­­­­­

http://www.nutramed.com/environment/carschemicals.htm

Join your fellow parishioners as we build a Sustainability Project here at St. Francis.   

Contact Scott Wright (734-821-2121).

www.stfrancisa2.com/sustainability

AnnArbor.com Story on St. Francis Parish Protecting the Environment

St. Francis News Story in AnnArbor.com
Faith Based Sustainability Program to Protect the Environment
http://www.annarbor.com/news/ann-arbor-church-creates-faith-based-program-to-protect-the-environment/

Getting off the bottle…

Getting off the bottle…

By Karen Digby, member of the St. Francis Sustainability Team for the Forum bulletin March 10th, 2013)

So you love to drink water.  Great!  This a healthy beverage for you.  Drinking bottled water though, not so healthy for your environment.  People often have the misgiving that bottled water is better for them, purer, without contaminants and better tasting.  This is not necessarily the case however, as determined by a four year study conducted by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).  According to the study, which examined 103 different types of bottled water from the United States, one third of those waters was found to be contaminated with carcinogenic and neurotoxic chemicals!  

Twenty five percent of bottled water was also determined to be sourced from a tap rather than solely from a pure spring or other clean source, according to industry and government estimations.  In fact, FDA water standard rules do not apply to up to 60 to 70 percent of American bottled water as they do to city water from the tap.  For example, tap water from the city must be examined for coliform bacteria at least 100 times monthly, whereas bottled water requires testing for the same, just once a week!  Bottled water usually must be tested for chemical contamination once per year, while city tap water must be tested at a minimum of every three months.

Financially this is not very healthy for the pocketbook either, as the bottled water habit can cost a drinker anywhere from 240 to over 10,000 more per gallon for water in a bottle, as compared  to that from a tap.  Additionally, empty bottles create 86 percent of the waste material found in landfills or incinerators, while 1.5 million barrels of oil are utilized, in the US, to manufacture new bottles (from polyethylene terephthalate).

Would you like to break this unhealthy habit?  Consider these solutions:

·               -purchase a ceramic filter or activated charcoal filter for your kitchen tap or a filtered water pitcher to make home made purified water (these will further filter the water and make the water taste better if you do not normally find the taste of tap water to be appealing)

·               -use a BPA free reusable bottle or mug to carry your home made water around with you to sip on during the day

-                refill these reusable bottles at local purified water re-filling stations or drinking fountains (the Meri Lou Murray Center in Ann Arbor, for instance has one of these stations, as do many buildings at the University of Michigan)

·               Water is supposed to be good for you.  Trying these solutions can help to keep it that way.   Salud!

·               Bottled water, what a waste.  http://www.treehugger.com/htgg/how-to-go-green-water.html

http://www.nrdc.org/water/drinking/bw/exesum.asp

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Join your fellow parishioners as we build a Sustainability Project here at St. Francis.   Contact Scott Wright (734-821-2121).

www.stfrancisa2.com/sustainability