Pope Benedict XVI on Environmental Stewardship

Pope Benedict speaks out to rally support from people of faith to take a more active and responsible role in restoring and caring for God's creation. Pope Benedict (AKA 'BXVI' or the 'green pope' to the hip, young crowd) says that humankind's consumption has scared the earth.

Good Steward Group Update

The Good Steward Group is 7 months into its life and I thought it might be nice, for those of you who have participated and others that might just be interested, for me to give a quick update on our accomplishments. So far, we have had 4 fantastic projects that we have worked on, all of which have been with different groups. This is about an event every 7 weeks or so. These events have been as follows:

1. Madrona Woods Creek Daylighting: partnered with the Friends of Madrona Woods (31.5 volunteer hours)
2. Burke-Gilman Revegetation: partnered with Seattle Parks Dept., GreenSEATTLE partnership, and the Friends of the Burke-Gilman Trail (13 volunteer hours)
3. Duwamish Alive! Earth Day Event: partnered with People for Puget Sound (9.5 volunteer hours)
4. Berry Spectacular, University Farmers Market: partnered with the Seattle Neighborhood Farmers Market Alliance (19.5 volunteer hours)

In total, we have donated 73.5 hours to local groups/organizations working on restoring our environment, not to mention all the weeds pulled, plants installed, and berry shortcake served. This is HUGE for these groups as they can often leverage our volunteer hours for grants to recieve additional funding and continue their great work.

I would like to thank everyone that has helped out at an event, offered words of encouragement, or even considered coming to an event (we'll get you out soon enough). While I would continue working with these groups if this group didn't exist, it sure does make volunteering more enjoyable when it's with great people like you all.

So, please continue e-mailing me your ideas for additional groups or environmental service projects that you think would be good for us. A running tab of ideas is on the right-side of the blog. The more diverse the better.

Thanks!

Berry Successful

The Berry Spectacular event, hosted by the Seattle Neighborhood Farmers Market Alliance, was a huge success. There were tons of amazing vendors and hundreds/thousands of eager shoppers. All of whom were treated to Berry Shortcake (donated by Whole Foods), cider (donated by Oakridge Orchards), and magnets passed out by the Good Steward Group! Donations accepted were for the Good Farmers Fund, a fund established by the Seattle Neighborhood Farmers Market Alliance, to provide emergency funding for local farmers during times of need.

Thank you all to the 9 of you that made it out to dish up shortcake! In total, we contributed 19.5 hours to the Seattle Neighborhood Farmers Market Alliance. What a way to celebrate the University Farmers Market's 15th Anniversary!


Support your local farmers market!