BY Sara Knuth PHOTOS BY Nick Benson
Healing the Earth
How Regis is answering the Vatican’s call to care for our common home BY Sara Knuth
A
vila Ruiz knelt into a fresh patch of dirt with a shovel in one hand and a small plant in another. Surrounded by dozens of fellow Regis freshmen, she began transferring plants native to Colorado into the ground. The patch of Regis University land where she was working was tucked behind modular campus buildings and beyond the backyards of homes in the surrounding neighborhood. Most Regis students could go their entire college careers without knowing the patch of land existed on their campus. But on the Office of First Year Experience’s Climate Action Day, this September, Ruiz was among a group of first-year students changing that, bringing growth and renewal to a new community garden previously vacant for years. “It’s a very simple action, but it has a big impact. If enough actions are taken, it becomes a big thing,” Ruiz, a freshman, said as she worked. “It's kind of healing to work with the ground and to put life in and to watch it grow.” Regis is counting on small actions to make a big impact. The small community garden is just one part of Regis efforts to implement the Laudato Si’ Action Plan, based on a document written by Pope Francis that calls upon people to care for the Earth — especially as it faces the ever-present threat of the climate crisis. The University’s Office of First Year Experience, which provides support and connection for new students, is bringing students into the conversation early. This year, in the lead-up to the
Prof. Jason Taylor, director of First Year Experience, and first-year students commemorated Climate Action Day by creating a garden on the Regis campus where a vacant lot had been.
