Category: Meetings Taking Action

  • How to Host a Climate Potluck

    by Pamela Haines. As I was pondering how to release more energy for addressing climate and environmental justice issues in our Quaker meeting, I had the idea of setting up an informal gathering where we could hear what others were doing and support each other to take a next step.

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  • Minute of Support for Indigenous People

    The North Pacific Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends repudiates the Doctrines of Discovery: the religious basis for European colonization around the world. We acknowledge and regret Friends’ role in the ensuing genocide, land theft, and forced assimilation of the peoples indigenous to this continent, including Friends’ role…

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  • Screenshot from PBS documentary, “How Americans Can Change Their Mindset about Wasting Food.”

    New Jersey Friends Take Action At Home

    Caption: Screenshot from PBS documentary, “How Americans Can Change Their Mindset about Wasting Food.” by Alice Andrews and Laird Holby. The idea for Medford Meeting’s Earth Day workshop “Green Your Life: Where to Start” came from a member of our Climate Change Group who, only too aware of the bad…

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  • August Earthcare Engagement For Your Community

    Dear Friends, Please join us in August for our monthly workshop and see additional resources below. Thank you! Hayley Hathaway, Director Quaker Earthcare Witness ____ ONLINE WORKSHOP Ecological Grief: Engaging with the Emotional Impacts of Climate Change with Gayle Matson & Hayley Hathaway Thursday,…

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  • June Earthcare Engagement for Your Community

    Dear Friends, As Shelley wrote to you earlier this week, “Our strength and stamina come from our spiritual connection with the living world, and with each other.” Thanks for being part of this community. Here are a few June updates: UPCOMING EVENTS More on…

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  • Flying fighter jet with blue sky background

    Military Jets & Environmental Restoration

    By Katherine van Wormer. An issue of immediate concern to the Madison (WI) Friends is government’s selection of our airport as home for the notorious F-35 fighter planes. The Madison Friends’ Minute begins: As Quakers, we seek to remove the circumstances that foster war, based on…

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  • FWCC Asks: What’s Happening in Spirit-Led Climate Action Among Quakers?

    Epistle from Friends World Committee for Consultation, Section of the Americas (FWCC). To all Friends Everywhere: On Saturday, 19th day of the 3rd month, a Consultation was held by FWCC entitled: Spirit-Led Climate Action Among Quakers: What’s Happening? This Zoom event was attended by approximately 40…

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  • Purple flowers in a bouquet with grey background

    May Earthcare Engagement for Your Community

    Earthcare Engagement for Your Community The end of April marked the 10th anniversary of the Kabarak Call for Peace and EcoJustice and we’re reflecting on its faithful words: “We dedicate ourselves to let the living waters flow through us – where we…

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  • Mind the Gap: Quaker Engagement at COP26

    by Frank Granshaw and Annette Carter. Our recent trip to Glasgow, Scotland for the UN climate conference for 2021 (COP26) involved a lot of travel by train. We had constant reminders to “Mind the gap when alighting the carriage.” This phrase felt very much in line with the genteel friendliness…

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  • Mist and mountains

    Greetings on the Solstice!

    I love this part of the winter holidays—when our sense of wonder and light corresponds to the natural pivot point of the solstice. Since June in the northern hemisphere, days have been getting shorter and shorter, with the shortest day today, on December 21. From this point on, days will…

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  • Cedar Green holds up greens as part of mutual aid project

    Our Wishlist: 7 Ways to Get Involved

    Hello Friends, Our Quaker Earthcare Witness network is filled with gifts. Friends offer their time, financial resources, prayers, experience, expertise, and connections to help our growing community care for the Earth and each other. Here are a few ways we’re hoping you can continue to generously share your gifts this season.

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  • Man with glasses holding up cardboard sign that says "Save the Earth"

    Philadelphia Yearly Meeting’s Climate Sprint

    At Philadelphia Yearly Meeting’s annual sessions this July, Friends came under the weight of the climate emergency as a yearly meeting priority and accepted and approved the Climate Sprint Report, “Moving Together in the Face of Climate Change,” excerpted below. 
To read the full commitment, visit PYM.org. This statement…

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  • Smoky purple skies behind green trees

    Engaging with Ecological Grief

    By Gayle Matson. Recently a Friend in my Quaker meeting spoke movingly of her sadness upon visiting a favorite place that had been ravaged by fire last year. Many of us can relate to that shock and dismay of discovering that a landscape or ecosystem we dearly love has…

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  • Large profile of tree in foreground with sun in background obscured by clouds and reddish sky

    A Shared Quaker Statement: Facing the Challenge of Climate Change

     [Last update: June 2017]   “It would go a long way to caution and direct people in their use of the world, that they were better studied and knowing in the Creation of it. For how could [they] find the confidence to abuse it, while they should see the…

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  • Durham Friends Meeting Install Solar Panel

    Durham Friends Install Solar Panels

    By Dale Evarts. IN AUGUST 2019, following a spiritual leading to live in harmony with Creation by harnessing the energy of the sun to power our meetinghouse, Durham Friends Meeting (DFM), a member of the North Carolina Yearly Meeting Conservative, began generating electricity from solar panels installed that summer. After…

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  • A Shared Quaker Statement: Facing the Challenge of Climate Change

    “It would go a long way to caution and direct people in their use of the world, that they were better studied and knowing in the Creation of it. For how could [they] find the confidence to abuse it, while they should see the great Creator stare them in the…

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  • Recommendations for all Friends

    To Friends Everywhere:  Quaker Earthcare Witness developed some challenges, which are recommendations for Friends’ Churches and Meetings throughout North America. We ask local Friends’ fellowships and Yearly Meetings to prayerfully examine these challenges and to explore ways to act upon part or all of them. These are suggested actions to…

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  • A stop sign in water

    Sharing Love and Knowledge in the Time of COVID-19

    An Interview with Beverly G. Ward. “IT’S LIKE PEELING an onion: layer after layer of pandemics and it all makes you cry,” shares Beverly Ward. She’s referencing the built-in injustice of her home state of Florida, where she works as Field Secretary for Earthcare for Southeastern Yearly Meeting (SEYM) and…

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  • Cedar Green holds up greens as part of mutual aid project

    Pacific Yearly Meeting’s Mutual Aid Experiment

    By Keith Runyan and Rebekah Percy. WHEN the shelter-in-place order took effect throughout California earlier this year, a small group of Young Adult Friends from Pacific Yearly Meeting organized a mutual aid project with the goals of sharing resources and creating greater equity and self-sustainability within our communities during the…

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  • Master Chinese herbalist Joe Hollis with young apprentice in his apothecary at Mountain Gardens, Celo, North Carolina.

    Mutual Aid & Local Food Sufficiency in the Era of COVID-19

    By Bob McGahey. South Toe Mutual Aid is an organization of people in the South Toe/Celo, North Carolina area who are collaborating in a variety of activities with intent to strengthen our community’s capacity to meet our resource needs for overall well-being. As a hub of Co-operate WNC, a regional…

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  • Photo of group of people meeting

    Philadelphia Friends Confront Climate Crisis

    By Patricia Finley, Ruth Darlington, Liz Robinson, and the Eco-Justice Collaborative of PYM. MORE THAN 50 FRIENDS gathered on a snowy morning at Germantown Monthly Meeting on January 18 to learn, share, and discern how to effectively address environmental injustice and the climate crisis. Over the course of the Thread…

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  • Seven people stand in soil

    Cultivating the Next Generation of Naturalists

    Fayetteville Arkansas Quakers Create Native Plant Garden for Ozark Natural Science Center By Eric Fuselier. The Fayetteville Monthly Meeting recently planted a native plant garden at the Ozark Natural Science Center (ONSC) located south of Eureka Springs, Arkansas. This native plant garden was a gift to ONSC, which is a…

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  • Three people stand in front of light pink house with porch

    Casa Pueblo: Truly the People’s House

    By Liz Robinson. THIS STORY STARTS with Hurricane Maria and our Central Philadelphia Monthly Meeting’s decision to select Casa Pueblo as the beneficiary for our 12th month charitable giving. Because of its outstanding reputation, and its amazing hurricane-disaster recovery work providing solar energy to restore power to vital community services…

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  • Image: Councilman Derek Green (right),a public banking advocate, addresses local lobbyists at Philadelphia City Hall on Lobby Day (Rita in blue and Pamela in teal). Photo: Stanley Shapiro.

    Public Banking, Divine Vocations, and Fertile Ground

    By Pamela Haines. THE ECO-JUSTICE Collaborative (EJC) of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting has endorsed an effort in Philadelphia to create a public bank. Similar to credit unions for individuals, a public bank would hold public funds in the city to be directed toward local needs, rather than paying for big banks to…

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  • Southern Appalachian Quaker Youth Respond to Climate Crisis

    By Robert McGahey. ARTHUR MORGAN SCHOOL and Celo Monthly Meeting recently hosted  Southern Appalachian Young Friends (SAYF) for their annual retreat here. The Quaker Earthcare Witness Outreach Committee contacted the organizers to share about our work, leading an afternoon session with the youth. After a rigorous hike to idyllic Strawberry…

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  • Feeding Us with Love and Local Tradition

    By Bonnie Peace Watkins AS THE TWIN CITIES Friends Meeting Fellowship Committee, we were excited about the Quaker Earthcare Witness  Spring  Steering Committee meeting  here  in mid-April.  We have long felt that food and fellowship are vital parts of witnessing, sharing, and caring for our beautiful planet. As we prepared…

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  • A few people walking ona very straight, flat highway

    First Nation – Farmer Climate Unity March

    An Introduction By Jeff Kisling. Iowa Yearly Meeting (Conservative) Friends Peter Clay and I recently walked on the First Nation-Farmer Climate Unity March. A group of about thirty that included nearly a dozen Native Americans walked 94 miles along the route of the Dakota Access Pipeline from September 1 –…

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  • Birds, Bees, and Butterflies: Monthly Meeting in Fayetteville, Arkansas Creates New Habitat for Wildlife

    By Eric Fuselier. LAST YEAR FAYETTEVILLE Monthly Meeting’s Quaker Earthcare Witness Committee started a project to improve the grounds at our meetinghouse, the OMNI Center for Peace, Justice & Ecology, to include more habitat for wildlife, with the ultimate goal of the Center becoming certified as a wildlife habitat by…

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  • Jenny Chapman stands in protest alongside five other people

    Stewardship is a Likely Place to Start: Mountain Valley Pipeline Resistance

    By Jenny Chapman Jenny Chapman, a birthright Quaker whose ancestors made the pilgrimage to America with William Penn, lives on a farm on Bent Mountain in rural southwest Virginia and is a member of Roanoke Friends Meeting. She and her husband raised their two sons on the Mountain and now…

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  • Banner that says divest

    Divestment for Social Change

    By Kent Walton. HONORING THE ANCIENT adage to “put your money where your mouth is,” Roanoke Friends in Virginia organized a meeting after worship to inform members about divesting from fossil fuel companies. Presented by the Meeting’s Peace and Social Justice Committee, Roanoke Friend and financial advisor Tom Nasta…

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  • Whittier Friends' new garden

    Mini-Grants at Work 2018

    QUAKER EARTHCARE WITNESS offers grants to Friends’ organizations who want to enhance their physical/spiritual relationship with the Earth. We offer matching grants of up to $500 and you can apply anytime. We support projects which: Improve your immediate environment Involve, inform, and educate May reduce carbon footprints Create opportunities to…

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  • Meeting for Mourning: New England Friends Worship at Power Plant

    By Hayley Hathaway. ON SATURDAY, JULY 28, 2018 I joined about 30 Friends from five New England states at the gates of the recently opened Salem Harbor Station, a natural gas (methane) power plant on the coast of Massachusetts. We gathered for a Meeting for Worship for the purpose of…

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  • Example of Flyer for Sustainable movie screening

    Building a Community for Change: Hosting A Movie Night

    By Ruth Darlington. WHAT DO YOU DO when you are led to reach out about climate change, but you don’t know who else in your community cares about it? Last September, Medford Meeting in New Jersey co-hosted an all-day climate change film festival with the Pinelands Preservation Alliance, a local…

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  • A NSNP Youth Saves Seed from Cilantro Plants

    Praying on Seeds: Solidarity for Puerto Rican Sovereignty

    By Marian Dalke. SUNDAY MORNING’s soft light casts through deep wooden windows. The light shifts and picks up the soft cotton of milkweed seeds, sailing over the heads of those gathered for Quaker Meeting for Worship at Central Philadelphia Monthly Meeting. Grace Gonglewski shares a message about “praying on seeds,”…

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  • Citizens Climate Lobby Logo

    Rapid City Friends Ask Your Meeting to Send a Letter to Congress

    By Rapid City Friends and Rapid City chapter of Citizens’ Climate Lobby Rapid City Friends, an unaffiliated worship group in Rapid City, South Dakota, in conjunction with the local chapter of Citizens’ Climate Lobby, has taken action as a community:  As Quakers, we are called to work for the peaceable…

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  • Yellow signs on foloor that say Support, Transform to Put Climate in the Budget. It's urgent

    Toronto Meeting Hosts ClimateFast Initiative

    By Lyn Adamson TORONTO MONTHLY MEETING’S Peace and Social Action Committee has supported the work of ClimateFast, a Canadian climate action group, since its inception in 2012. For the first three years, ClimateFast focused on federal climate action with periods of fasting, a vigil on Parliament Hill, and a pledge…

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  • Beverly Ward Collecting Tidewater Sample

    Rising Together: Community Health Mapping in South Florida

    By Beverly G. Ward MANY COMMUNITIES in South Florida experience “sunny day” flooding during periods of very high or “king” tides. During a new or full moon, when the sun and the moon are aligned with Earth in their orbits, the gravitational pull on the oceans is at its strongest,…

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  • Group of people writing no leaves under a light

    Adding Leaves to the Grove of Life

    By Regula and Michael Russelle. AN ALL-NIGHT, OUTDOOR EVENT. One thousand passersby publicly claim their practices and promises to reduce climate change. Each attaches a paper leaf with a personal, hand-written testimony like “bicycle everywhere,” “no food waste,” “share housing,” “travel by train” to a branch on a small grove…

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  • Sign with building behind it

    Peace, Justice and Ecology in Arkansas

    By Eric Fuselier. Friends, we are happy to announce that we recently formed a Quaker Earthcare Committee within the monthly meeting in Fayetteville, Arkansas. Members of the committee have a lot of passion and knowledge about the environment and we’re really excited about the projects we have going on here.

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  • The Gift That Keeps on Giving: Updates at Catoctin Quaker Camp

    By Liz Hofmeister. ON SEPTEMBER 30TH, former campers, counselors, and others long associated with Baltimore Yearly Meeting’s Catoctin Quaker Camp marked the 60th anniversary of the residential summer camp located some 50 miles west of Baltimore, MD. A highlight of the weekend celebration was the dedication of the camp’s new…

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  • Climate Pilgrimage

    Rooted in Reverence: Reflections on the Climate Pilgrimage

    By Honor Woodrow. I AM WRITING TO SHARE a reflection on my experience of the recent Climate Pilgrimage, where Friends from New England and fellow travelers spent six days walking the 60 miles from the Schiller Station (which burns both coal and wood) in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, to the Merrimack…

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  • Quaker House

    Ecological Living at Quaker Retirement Community

    By Elizabeth Boardman. PERHAPS, IF WE HAD ASKED THEM, our grandchildren could have told us before we came here to Friends House what benefits we would accrue by moving out of the big family home to a small apartment.  And now we could tell them the advantages of a communal…

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  • Denali National Park and Preserve, United States

    Juneau’s Journey Toward Renewable Energy

    By Margo Waring. JUNEAU, ALASKA COULD BE A MODEL for cities across the nation.  A new non-profit called Renewable Juneau is trying to make this happen. Our mission is to “Promote local, renewable energy to create a healthy, prosperous, and low-carbon future for Juneau.” We decided to keep our focus…

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  • Group of people listening to talk

    A Field Secretary for Earthcare

    By Brad Stocker, Miami Friends Meeting. FOUR YEARS AGO, the Southeastern Yearly Meeting (SEYM) Earthcare Committee (EcC) brought forth a Minute on Climate Change that was approved the 14th day of the fourth month, 2014, which reads in part: “We, the Friends of Southeastern Yearly Meeting, bring this minute forward…

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  • Hundreds of people with red sign that says "Defend the Sacred"

    Reflections on Standing Rock

    Sacred Stone, Clean Water, Gathering People By Shelley Tanenbaum, QEW General Secretary. The gathering at Standing Rock, with more than 280 indigenous tribes represented, is historic and has been an inspiration to all of us. The ongoing gathering is being held to block construction of the Dakota pipeline that threatens…

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  • Photo of Solar Array above parking lot

    Quakers’ Solar Canopy

    By Don Vessey, San Diego Friends Meeting. America is fast realizing the importance of solar energy. Switching to solar power is not only an environmental necessity, but it makes financial sense as well. It reduces global warming not only by reducing the use of fossil fuels, but potentially in other…

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  • Alaskans Demand Climate Justice and Clean Energy

    Fairbanks Climate Action Coalition’s Next Step

    By Cathy Walling, Chena Ridge Friends Meeting, Fairbanks, AK. “I love to feel where words come from.”  I have long loved that quote from our Quaker heritage story of the indigenous man Papunehang hearing John Woolman preaching. He didn’t know what Woolman was saying, but he knew it was coming…

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  • Group standing with "No Pipeline" Sign

    Thinking Globally, Acting Locally: Against the Mountain Valley Pipeline

    By Vicki Tolbert As a member of the Blacksburg, VA Friends Earthcare Committee reminded us, we have been “thinking globally, acting locally” as we take on a global issue confronting our local area: the proposed Mountain Valley Pipeline. Appalachia has historically been a target for those…

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  • Group of four people with sign

    In Solidarity with Those at COP21

    By QEW Friends Some QEW Friends weren’t in Paris but were participating in events in their local areas in support of change for the planet. In this section several Friends share their COP21 experiences with you. = = = = = = = = = =  “I…

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  • Night Sky By Kathy Barnhart

    For Peace on Earth and Unity with Creation: Recommendations for All Friends

    From the QEW Sustainability: Faith and Action Working Group. Recognizing the urgency of reducing our carbon footprint and living sustainably on the earth, QEW’s Sustainability: Faith and Action working group will be reaching out to all monthly and yearly meetings this year with resources and encouragement to take…

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