As highlighted last week, members of our Earth Justice Action Group and Green Sanctuary Team are excited to announce that our congregation was awarded UUA Green Sanctuary Accreditation on February 16, 2022! Countless members of the congregation completed 12 UUA-approved projects in four areas of congregational life between October 2018-December 2022! We also agreed to provide more information to those who would like to know more about our collective achievement.
The UUA Green Sanctuary (GS) program, created in 1989, is a formal congregation accreditation program grounded in our UU Principles, which provides a structured approach to congregational study, reflection, and action in response to growing environmental degradation and our climate crisis.
ERUUF has a long history of a commitment to environmental sustainability and justice work. In 2008, long-standing member Albert Hardy led the formation of the Green Earth Ministry (GEM) Team. Albert and several additional members of the congregation including Candace Carraway, Mary O’Dwyer, Tom O’Dwyer, Barbara Beaman, and Ann Ringland all served on the GEM Team. These members contributed to an increased awareness of and commitment to environmental justice work at ERUUF to include initial explorations into Green Sanctuary accreditation.
In 2017, the members of the Earth Justice Action Group decided to build upon these initial efforts with the benefit of all the learnings gained from them as well as energy and experience offered by new member Denise Frizzell who had recently co-chaired an accreditation process at her former congregation, First Parish UU Northborough, MA. Thus, the 2017 EJ Action Group leaders, Cheryl Turney and Albert Hardy worked with the Board of Directors at that time to include GS accreditation on the ERUUF Strategic Plan. From that point until completion many milestones took place including:
- Three Community Engagement Sessions (aka “heart-storming”) were held October-November 2017 to identify the aspirations held by ERUUFians in the four areas of congregational life, Worship & Celebration, Religious Education (youth and adult), Environmental Justice (larger community collaboration), and Sustainable Living (primarily our building and grounds).
- A professional energy audit by Interfaith Power and Light was completed by John Seymour, Retired Environmental Engineer II and volunteer for NC Interfaith Power and Light in May 2018. The audit findings are covered in a 19-page report included in our approved GS Candidacy Application, September 2018.
- The 2018 Pulse Survey included questions about earth justice and Green Sanctuary topics.
- A RE-Youth Program Assessment was completed in partnership with RE staff and volunteer leaders.
Congregational input from these four activities informed our GS Candidacy Application which was approved by the UUA Green Sanctuary Program in October 2018. From October 2018 to December 30, 2022, led by the Green Sanctuary Team (Betsy Bickel, Tom Fletcher, Denise Frizzell, Albert Hardy, Kristie Mather, Lila Rosa, Jonathan Sheline, and Cheryl Turney), ERUUFians united to complete the twelve projects put forth in our GS Candidacy Application. Highlights of our shared accomplishments include:
- Our Green Sanctuary Focus on Food Project, a collaborative endeavor of the Earth Justice and Homeless Action Groups of the ERUUF Justice Ministry and the community organization, Families Moving Forward (FMF). The emphasis of this project is a community garden that supplies families with fresh produce to supplement their meals.
- From July 2018 to the present, attention and conscious intent has been given to designing worship services with regular 7th Principle-oriented themes. Worship services were informed by diverse traditions and views/approaches such as evolutionary spirituality, wisdom from our world religions, stewardship, Creation Care, quantum physics, deep ecology, our Earth-centered traditions, etc.
- The “greening” of our RE Youth curriculum by Green Sanctuary team members, RE staff and parents.
- 2018 to present the holding of an annual Earth and Climate Justice Month (ECJM) in April to educate our adult congregants on ways that they as individuals can live more sustainably and in greater harmony with the interdependent web of life.
- The installation and activation of a 47-kWh solar system that evolved through multiple phases (research, grant, fundraising, vendor negotiation, project scope, installation, and refinement) with the support of numerous ERUUFians including a grant from our Foundation and numerous individual member donations (over 27% of pledging households) to raise $100,750. In addition, we received over $35,000 in solar rebates from Duke Energy for the installation. We expect the system to cover almost 40% of typical usage on campus once we are back to “normal” operations.
Congratulations! These are a few highlights of our accomplishments!
Note: The link to the final GS Accreditation Application is here and the link to the UUA accreditation letter is available here.
The core Green Sanctuary Team thanks each ERUUFian who contributed to this collective achievement over the last four years--a congregational celebration is in order! Hopefully, with COVID-19 cases continuing to drop, we will be able to gather in fellowship and celebration before the end of this fellowship year. Please keep your eyes and ears open for a Green Sanctuary Accreditation celebration as all are welcome! Again, way to go, ERUUFians!!
