Hands needed to help with harvest

"The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field."

- Matthew 9:37-38

He sat at a table all alone at the Community Kitchen. He was wearing a dirty shirt and holey jeans. His face was aged by the years he had spent living on the street. When he saw the large basket full of cabbage that I was carrying in the door, his blank face broke into a beautiful toothless smile. At that moment I experienced a connection with this man I had never met before. I saw Jesus in him. I saw life. I saw life in mid-May when we came upon a bird's nest with eggs in the middle of the cucumber plot. We carefully picked around that nest making sure we never touched it. By June there was a small featherless bird and in July we watched that little bird fly away for the first time. These are just a couple of the many memories that I have from the past two years of being a part of the Gardening for God ministry. This garden brings life to our community and to our church.

Spring is just around the corner and this is going to be an exciting year for the garden here at Christ UMC. If you want to do something exciting and simple this summer with your family, along with giving to those in need in our community, then please think about joining the Gardening for God ministry. We are looking for hands to help harvest. This is a great opportunity to meet and fellowship with other members of the church. We will harvest every Wednesday and Saturday at 9 a.m. from the middle of May until August. Harvesting takes only 30 minutes and you do not even have to commit to coming every week. Our goal for the garden this year is 1600 pounds of fresh vegetables. Come and help us reach our goal.

If you want to help but don't want to get dirty, we are also looking for volunteers to help deliver the food to the organizations that we give to. If you would like to be a part of this ministry, please call Emily Dykstra at 933-4440.

Come sow seeds with us too:

• Saturday, March 12, 10 AM - Planting of cool season crops
• Saturday, April 23, 10 AM - Planting of warm season crops

Emily Dykstra
Gardening for God Ministry and CUMC Green Team

Sporting Green

No, we're not talking about golf ... we're talking about ways to make your sports and other spring/summer activities more environmentally friendly. Earlier this week we shared some equipment tips; today it's all about the activities themselves.

One of the easiest - and most significant - things we can all do is pick up litter. If every sports fan picked up and properly disposed of just one piece of litter per year, more than 1,480 tons of unsightly trash could be removed from trails, beaches, lakes, rivers, forests, oceans, and other fragile ecosystems. That's enough to fill 185 garbage trucks! And it goes without saying that you should always dispose of your own garbage in a properly marked container.

Here are some other sports-specific tips:

Baseball/Softball - You can save energy by scheduling daytime games for your baseball and softball leagues. A single field can use an average of 72,000 kwh of energy annually for nighttime lighting. This much energy could keep your house lit for 60 years! In the U.S., more than 33 million youth participate in organized ball teams. If just 10 percent of these teams rescheduled one evening game for a daylight hour, the energy saved could broadcast MLB's all-star game on 11 million TV's.
Basketball - Take your daytime pickup game outside. You'll save energy as well as wear and tear on the indoor court. Gymnasium lighting can consume over 60,000 kwh per year, much of which isn't needed during the day anyway. If you get the chance, check out one of the more than 100 courts around the country made from the soles of recycled athletic shoes - they're cropping up in lots of major cities, including Atlanta, Miami, and Washington, D.C.
Football and soccer - If you have the choice, choose playing on natural grass over artificial turf. Natural grass is renewable, and clippings can be composted. Grasses produce oxygen, remove air pollutants, filter rainwater, and maintain cooler surface temperatures. Artificial turf production is energy intensive and uses synthetic materials, none of which are recyclable. And artificial fields last for an average of just 10 years, after which they are pulled up and taken to - you guessed it - the landfill.
Golf - Try visiting one of the hundreds of conservation-minded courses in the U.S. that have committed to decreasing water consumption, reducing chemicals, preserving native landscapes, and protecting wildlife habitats. If an additional 1 percent of the 16,000 courses in the U.S. adopted water conservation strategies, we'd save enough water to restore a wetland the size of Augusta National Golf Club.
Surfing - When you're vying for better beach access, remember to keep your vehicle on paved roads or marked pathways, and never drive across sand dunes. You'll save on gas, protect coastal habitats, prevent erosion, and ensure a future of good surf.
Tennis - Play outdoor tennis during daylight hours in order to prevent the need for energy-intensive nighttime lighting. Lighting for a single court can consume more than 4,700 kwh of energy per year, enough to power the average household for about six months.

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These simple steps give the earth the biggest impact and require just a little effort on our part.
Green sports tips courtesy of The Green Book: The everyday guide to saving the planet one simple step at a time.

Spring is in the air

With apologies to the regular readers we have - or may have once had - the Christ Church Green Team blog is back up and running! We took a break to regroup a bit, but the Green Team is back and ready for action this spring and summer. One of the coolest things we're planning is a month-long Green celebration during the month of July ... stay tuned for more information as the summer gets closer.

In the meantime, spring is right around the corner, and with the warmer weather come outdoor activities ... including lots of sports! No matter what you choose to play, it's likely that you can take small steps to make your sports a little greener:

Equipment:
Bags - Choose duffel bags and backpacks made from recycled materials over those made from petroleum-derived virgin polyester or PVC, which is less recyclable. For each bag purchased, you could safe the equivalent of 15 two-liter soda bottles from going into landfills.
Balls - If you buy tennis balls (for yourself or your pet), consider purchasing the pressureless variety. Pressureless tennis balls are not only longer lasting than their pressurized counterparts, but they're sold in a recyclable paper box or mesh bag instead of plastic or metal. There are 360 million tennis balls manufactured each year; if an additional 25 percent of these were pressureless, the plastic tubes saved would stretch from Queens, NY, to Wimbledon, England.
Bikes - Choose a bike with a steel frame over an aluminum frame and you'll conserve at least 25 kwh of energy. Steel frames can be made of recycled materials, whereas aluminum frames must be manufactured from new ore, and therefore require more energy to make.
Bats - Since aluminum is the most energy-intensive of all materials made in the U.S., consider using a bat made of renewable wood or even bamboo. You'll help reduce pollution and conserve the energy equivalent of almost a gallon of gasoline per bat. If one in ten Little League players opted for non aluminum bats, the total energy saved could transport 10,000 fans from all over the country to watch the Little League World Series in Pennsylvania.
Water - Water is a must in the sports world - it replenishes the body, and it's important to keep plenty on hand. For many athletes, though, this means cases and cases of plastic water bottles - bottles which eventually end up in landfills. Instead, buy an aluminum water bottle and refill it. If two of three sports fans refilled a water bottle rather than buying a new one each time, it would save about as many plastic bottles as there are people in the U.S.
Borrow or buy used! - Try purchasing used equipment. If 5 percent of the money spent on new sporting goods were directed at used items instead, Americans could save $250 million per year - enough to buy solar panels for 20,000 houses.

Later this week, we'll share ideas for greening up your participation in spring and summer sports!

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Green sports tips courtesy of The Green Book: The everyday guide to saving the planet one simple step at a time.

Lunch-time waste ... it's staggering

Facts compiled and reported by reuseit.com  ...

The Problem

• The Environmental Protection Agency estimated that 780,000 tons of plastic and polystyrene cups and plates were discarded in 2008.
• The Container Recycling Institute claims that 2.81 million juice boxes were sold in the U.S. in 2006.
• An independent study done in June of 2010 by the Environmental Law Foundation found toxic levels of lead in more than 40 different juices and juice boxes.
• The EPA estimates nearly 4 million tons of plastic bags, sacks and wraps were produced in 2008. Of those, 3,570,000 tons (90%) were discarded. This is almost triple the amount discarded the first year plastic bag numbers were tracked (1,230,000 tons in 1980).Annual worldwide production and use of plastic material has rocketed from 5 million tons in the 1950s to 100 million tons in 2000.
• Estimates by the BBC and CNN claim that anywhere from .5% to 3% of all bags winds up recycled.
• In good circumstances, some plastics will take more than 20 years to degrade. In less ideal circumstances (land fills or as general refuse), plastic refuse will take more than 1,000 years to degrade. The extremely slow decomposition rate of plastics means they will drift on the ocean for untold years.
• A U.N. study from 2006 stated that every square mile of the ocean has 46,000 pieces of floating plastic in it. The same study also stated that 10% of the plastic produced every year worldwide winds up in the ocean, 70% of which finds its way to the ocean floor, where it will likely never degrade.
• Plastic cutlery is non-biodegradable, can leach toxic chemicals when handled improperly, and is widely used. Worldcentric.org estimates 40 billion plastic utensils are used every year in just the United States. The majority of these are thrown out after just one use.

The Impact

• When plastics break down, they don't biodegrade, they photodegrade. This means the materials break down to smaller toxic fragments which contaminate soil, waterways, and animals upon digestion.
• Refuse plastic absorbs pre-existing organic pollutants, including Bisphenol A (BPA) and polychlorinated biphenyls(PCBs).
• The Agency for Toxic Substances & Disease Registry has this to say about PCBs: "Animals that ate food containing large amounts of PCBs over short periods of time had mild liver damage and some died. Animals that ate smaller amounts of PCBs in food over several weeks or months developed various kinds of health effects, including anemia; acne-like skin conditions; and liver, stomach, and thyroid gland injuries."

The Solution

• The solution is to embrace a cultural shift away from use-and-toss mentality. Use durable, long-lasting containers that will last years rather than disposable sandwich wraps, chip bags, fruit salad or pudding cups.
• Bento boxes are a perfect example of a solution to disposable sandwich wraps; they are compartmentalized, allowing one to bring up to four separate dishes without using a single bag or wrap.
• Stop using disposable napkins and instead opt for durable, washable cloth napkins that won't wind up in a landfill.
• Use a high-quality water bottle to bring a drink instead of a disposable container (like a juice box). Thermal-insulated ones will even keep your drink as cold or as hot as when you packed it.
• Don't use paper bags. A study on the life cycle of three types of disposable bags (single-use plastic, paper, and compostable plastic) showed that both compostable plastic and paper bags require more material per bag in the manufacturing process. This means "higher consumption of raw materials in the manufacture of the bags...[and] greater energy in bag manufacturing and greater fuel use in the transport of the finished product. ...The added requirements of manufacturing energy and transport for the compostable and paper bag systems far exceed the raw material use in the standard plastic bag system." (from a peer reviewed Boustead Consulting & Associates report)

See what you can do this school or work year to be part of the solution!

Packing a waste-free lunch

It's back-to-school time, and for many busy parents this also means a return to lunch-packing. Did you know that the typical child generates 67 pounds of lunchtime trash per year? With more families trying to save money by brown bagging it that's a lot of waste - and money - going into the trash. Creating a waste-free lunch kit is smart ... and it's one of the easiest ways to significantly reduce your consumption of use-and-toss items - and save money (about $371 annually).

Reuseit.com has compiled five great ways to reduce the waste your family generates during lunches on the go.

Come back later this week for some staggering facts and figures related to our culture's near-epidemic use of tossable lunch materials.

How does your garden grow?

Those of you who attend Christ Church might already know this, but we have a beautiful organic vegetable garden! It's part of the "Gardening for God" ministry, and its harvest is donated to local food charities.

God has again blessed our garden harvest!

Here are some amazing harvest totals (as of June 29, 2010):

• Cabbage: 38 pounds
• Cauliflower: 26 pounds
• Lettuce: 33 pounds
• Carrots: 24 pounds
• Squash: 51 pounds
• Zucchini: 83 pounds
• Cucumbers: 140 pounds
• Potatoes: 67 pounds

Wow! Gardening for God coordinator Emily Dykstra reports that the volunteers' hard work is paying off and helping to feed the homeless of Chattanooga who come each day to the Community Kitchen. The workers there are always so grateful when they see us drive up with our bounty two days each week. We get the same response when we deliver the produce to the Chattanooga Food Bank and St. Andrews Center -- thanks over and over.

Volunteers are needed to water the garden and to help with harvesting. Watering is assigned a week at a time (and we need volunteers for the last week of July, plus the first two weeks of August). Harvest times are Wednesday at 9 a.m. and Sundays at 6 p.m. It only takes about 30 minutes and is a lot of fun. Please join us.

If you're interested in helping, please respond to this post in the "comments" section, and we'll put you in touch with Emily. Thanks!

Mmmm ... blackberry picking

Chattanooga's own Crabtree Farms offers pick-your-own blackberries ... starting tomorrow at 9 a.m.! Make your picking even greener by bringing your own recycled container to store them in! Word on the street is that the berries are HUGE and so sweet!