Living Lightly on Earth By S. Caroljean Willie
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arthConnection’s staff, Sisters Winnie Brubach and Caroljean Willie and Associate Sue DiTullio, continue to seek new and creative ways to pursue its ministry of providing a center for learning and reflection about living lightly on Earth. Programs are designed to reach a variety of audiences from children through adults.
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Prior to the closure of EarthConnection (EC) due to the pandemic, Girl Scout troops were visiting EC approximately every week or two. Some troops came to earn their EarthConnection patch by learning about alternative energies and participating in a variety of activities. Others wanted to fulfill the requirements for badges pertaining to nature and EarthConnection’s bottle caps to benc hes program invited Girl Scouts environmental issues available at their to save plastic bottle caps which wou ld be recycled into benches and picnic tables. level of scouting. Since we cannot meet in person right now, we are providing activities for the girls on our website. One is an essay contest asking girls to write about their love cabbage, onions, tomatoes, bell peppers and Anaheim chilies. for nature, the importance of caring for the environment and The excessive weeding for us is due to not having the help the world young people want. The other is a suggested poetic form (changed every few weeks) that invites them to take a trip of MSJU volunteer students in the early spring. Letting the weeds grow and bloom turned the garden into a beautiful to their backyards and write about what they see. array of wild flowers. The colors were soft pinks to deep Sue DiTullio, our administrative assistant, designed a bottle yellows. Of course, there is the ever-present dandelion and we caps to benches program which invited Girl Scouts to save plastic have an invasive grass that gives us trouble everywhere. bottle caps which would be recycled into benches and picnic Our gardeners this year are June Greensmith, Diane tables. The goal of the program is to encourage Girl Scouts to become better stewards of our environment by learning the value Massa, Barb Huber, Mary Levitch, and Robin Boeskin and Marietta Bucalo when they can join us. We are happy to have of recycling. Somehow word of this endeavor ended up on a number of websites and we have gotten calls, emails and boxes of Mary with us. She is an experienced gardener and not shy about the work necessary. We look forward to helping the lids from throughout the country. Good Samaritan Free Health Center with fresh vegetables. EC is also hosting a series of webinars on environmental Our garden will have assistance again this year from the topics every two weeks to continue our mission of educating about sustainability. Topics include “Climate Change, Poverty hive of honey bees kept at EC by Dr. Gene Kritsky, MSJU entomologist. They help us pollinate our vegetables and and Refugees,” “Ecospirituality,” “The Earth Charter: A flowers and those of gardens within their three-to-five mile Document for Our Times,” and Journaling with Nature.” radius. Because there are no students at MSJU to assist Dr. Those interested can check out our website, Kritsky, S. Winnie is feeding the bees with sugar water until www.scearthconnection.org, for dates and times. they can provide for themselves. The EC veggie garden was slow to start this spring due to both COVID-19 and the weather. Now that we are meeting weekly we have weeded, weeded, weeded and planted peas, 24
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