Healthy Earth Team
Our insistence that each human being is an image of God should not make us overlook the fact that each creature has its own purpose. None is superfluous. The entire material universe speaks of God’s love, his boundless affection for us. Soil, water, mountains: everything is, as it were, a caress of God. (Laudato Si’, Para. 84)
The Healthy Earth Team is our parish response to Pope's Francis' clarion call to ecological conversion issued in his encyclical Laudato Si': On Care for Our Common Home.
The Healthy Earth Team is our parish response to Pope's Francis' clarion call to ecological conversion issued in his encyclical Laudato Si': On Care for Our Common Home.
Overview
Our Mission: The Healthy Earth Team inspires our parish through educational initiatives to connect the tenets of our Catholic faith and the need for action in protecting our common home from ecological exploitation and injustice.
As a guiding framework, the Team has adopted the five pillars of the Catholic Climate Covenant's St. Francis Pledge: Pray, Learn, Assess, Act and Advocate. Activities within this framework are organized within four themes:
Educational resources, events, and connection to our faith
Fresh is Better: Evanston Community Gardens Project: working with our Evanston neighbors to bring healthy, local and organic produce to the community. More about the project can be found here.
A Greener Bellarmine: Terracycle recycling of cosmetics and toiletries (full list available here) (restarted April 22, 2021)
Advocacy and partnerships
Team members engage in a variety of learning, advocacy, and volunteering initiatives with local and national organizations including: Green Umbrella, Civic Garden Center, Xavier University Climate Change Workgroup, Archdiocese of Cincinnati Climate Change Taskforce, and the Ignatian Solidarity Network, Environmental Justice Initiatives
The Team welcomes new members and new ideas for how to help our community become even more centered on the concerns of our excluded neighbor and the excluded earth. We meet monthly, on the fourth Monday of the month at 6 PM.
For more information or to join, contact our Director of Social Mission, Tim Severyn at severyn@bellarminechapel.org
As a guiding framework, the Team has adopted the five pillars of the Catholic Climate Covenant's St. Francis Pledge: Pray, Learn, Assess, Act and Advocate. Activities within this framework are organized within four themes:
- Parish education, discipleship, and faith formation
- Fresh is Better: Evanston Garden Project, Nexus Community Garden and XU Urban Farm
- A Greener Bellarmine: facility and operations
- Advocacy and partnerships
Educational resources, events, and connection to our faith
- Healthy Earth Resources Page
- Recycling Handout
- Annual Earth Day-themed Mass with prayer, music and seed giveaways
- Ecological theme in liturgy for annual parish picnic near Feast of St. Francis of Assisi in October (suspended during pandemic)
- Active Discipleship Days (in collaboration with all other parts of Parish Life)
- Support of National Drive Electric Week
- Meatless Meetups (suspended and/or virtual during pandemic)
- Earthscursions
- JustFaith Eco-Justice series
Fresh is Better: Evanston Community Gardens Project: working with our Evanston neighbors to bring healthy, local and organic produce to the community. More about the project can be found here.
A Greener Bellarmine: Terracycle recycling of cosmetics and toiletries (full list available here) (restarted April 22, 2021)
Advocacy and partnerships
Team members engage in a variety of learning, advocacy, and volunteering initiatives with local and national organizations including: Green Umbrella, Civic Garden Center, Xavier University Climate Change Workgroup, Archdiocese of Cincinnati Climate Change Taskforce, and the Ignatian Solidarity Network, Environmental Justice Initiatives
The Team welcomes new members and new ideas for how to help our community become even more centered on the concerns of our excluded neighbor and the excluded earth. We meet monthly, on the fourth Monday of the month at 6 PM.
For more information or to join, contact our Director of Social Mission, Tim Severyn at severyn@bellarminechapel.org
Recycling List Updated April 2021 - Take Your Recycling to the Next Level!
Members of Bellarmine’s Healthy Earth Team have updated their resource list for helping you recycle all of those hard to recycle items - from batteries and styrofoam to e-waste and plastics. Check out the list here! And, recognizing that it can be time consuming to try to live into less waste, we will be doing our best to let you know whenever there are City-wide or community-wide drop off events where you can bring lots of these items at once!
Members of Bellarmine’s Healthy Earth Team have updated their resource list for helping you recycle all of those hard to recycle items - from batteries and styrofoam to e-waste and plastics. Check out the list here! And, recognizing that it can be time consuming to try to live into less waste, we will be doing our best to let you know whenever there are City-wide or community-wide drop off events where you can bring lots of these items at once!
Laudato Si' Week Parishioner Gallery - 2020
