Latest News from the Green Sanctuary Group

Our purpose is to educate, inspire, organize, and support congregational and personal practices that honor and sustain our planet Earth. Our church has been accredited as a Green Sanctuary by the Unitarian Universalist Association.

Download the group’s current brochure, wtih Green Sanctuary Action Plan for 2018-2019.

Green Sanctuary Action Plan for 2017-2018

Worship and Celebration

Hold three environmentally oriented worship services during this church year. (Joan Staples will be the lead and liaison with our co-ministers.)

Religious Education

Offer environmentally oriented curriculum for children and youth on a periodic basis. This is already being accomplished this church year, as Children’s RE used the environmental curriculum Creepy Crawlies for the summer 2017. (Allan Lindrup, as an RE teacher, will serve as liaison to the MRE on this matter.)

Provide multi-media/format environmental education for adults, consisting of movies, guest speakers, book readings and discussions, and perhaps tours. Allan will take the lead on movies. Ellie and Nadia will co-lead guest speakers and other environmentally oriented Community and First Forums. (Nadia’s focus is on practical matters for sustainable living.) Bill Bassin will coordinate an environmental books reading and discussion group, which will meet once or twice a month.

Environmental Justice

Work with the SE Chicago Environmental Task Force to fight environmental threats facing the southeast side of Chicago. (The lead person is Ellen Larue, with Dan Bader also significantly involved.)

Ellen (along with perhaps others) will research environmental justice projects that we might work with on the broader/global level.

Sustainable Living

Promote recycling at all events involving church members. Get more signage posted, make sure that both recycling and waste containers are present at social hour and other events involving significant number of church members. (Richard Pardo will lead, with Kennie James to assist.)

Encourage household hazardous waste and computer electronics collection, targeting the mid-southeast side, to be held on the first Saturday of either November or December. (Allan Lindrup will lead.)

Focus on personal actions that promote a sustainable environment. Nadia will follow up on the survey that Arianna Lambie organized a couple years ago, then build on that base. (Nadia Pierrehumbert will lead.)

Connect more with the work of the UU Ministry for Earth. We will renew our church membership with that organization before initiating that. (Dan will lead that effort.)

Encourage clothes recycling. We will seek to secure a box to collect clothing that can be used either in undeveloped countries or for rags. (Nadia will lead this effort.)

Improve our church’s landscaping, while assisting with carbon dioxide removal from the atmosphere, by purchasing and planting hardy aronia (choke cherry) bushes in place of bushes previously tried which did not survive in Chicago’s climate. (Irene will have the lead.)

Note: The long deferred installation of the commercial kitchen dish washer (and related electrical work), for which we have collected $5,000, is expected to be among the projects in the upcoming capital campaign, but may not happen until the 2018-19 church year.