In the spring, St. Matthew’s in the Glebe hosts three events to help raise awareness of our responsibility to care for God’s Earth.
Our Earth Day celebration this year will be held on Sunday, April 27. The 10 am family service will have an environmental focus, including our third annual Blessing of the Bicycles and alternate modes of carbon free transportation. We will give thanks for the wonderful earth and its gifts and encourage each person to make lifestyle changes that will have a positive impact on the environment. We will pray for God’s help in all our efforts.
Following the service, we will gather for a Souper Sunday event with a Carbon Footprint Game, which continues the theme of environment, led by Bill Nuttle. Our individual carbon footprint is the best indicator of our climate impact. Knowing our footprint can help us make personal changes in our daily lives to lessen our negative impact on the climate. The game, and group discussion afterwards, will help participants examine ways to accomplish the changes.
Concurrently, a special craft time for the younger environmentalists will be offered focusing on pollinators.
The third annual Salad Garden event will take place on Saturday, May 17. Soil, seeds and planters will be available, so that participants can come to the church and create a salad garden that they can grow and care for and then enjoy its produce during the summer. It’s a great way to enrich your patio or balcony. It’s also a wonderful way to help young people see where food originates and how much care is needed to produce it. Growing food is a perfect way to reduce carbon emissions; you don’t have to drive to the store to purchase it and no transportation is needed to get the product to the store. Plus, it’s wonderful to see plants spring from the earth. The event runs from 10:30 until noon.
Our second annual Cycle Clinic will be on Saturday, May 31. At this event, people drop by the First Avenue parking lot with their bikes, and a team of St. Matthew’s parishioners will guide participants through a quick five-step checklist to assess the health of the bicycle. The team will help the cyclists understand what repairs are needed to make the bike safe and more efficient. It just takes a few minutes to get one of our enthusiasts to work with the rider and the bike to find ways to make riding more enjoyable and regular maintenance as easy as 1,2,3. The clinic will be from 10 am until noon.
The Creation Matters Working Group at St. Matthew’s would love to see people from all parishes join us in our initiatives to be stewards of God’s Creation. Every effort we make to highlight the environment and to minimize our carbon footprint is an effort to be the best caretakers that we can of God’s gift to us.
Saint John, Innisville — Deanery of the Southwest