EarthConnection Living Lightly on Earth

Living Lightly on Earth

By S. Caroljean Willie

EarthConnection’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 environmental issues available at their level of scouting. Since we cannot meet EarthConnection’s bottle caps to benches program invited Girl Scouts to save plastic bottle caps which would be recycled into benches and picnic tables. 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 for nature, the importance of caring for the environment and cabbage, onions, tomatoes, bell peppers and Anaheim chilies. the world young people want. The other is a suggested poetic The excessive weeding for us is due to not having the help form (changed every few weeks) that invites them to take a trip of MSJU volunteer students in the early spring. Letting the to their backyards and write about what they see. weeds grow and bloom turned the garden into a beautiful 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 tables. The goal of the program is to encourage Girl Scouts to Our gardeners this year are June Greensmith, Diane become better stewards of our environment by learning the value Massa, Barb Huber, Mary Levitch, and Robin Boeskin and of recycling. Somehow word of this endeavor ended up on a Marietta Bucalo when they can join us. We are happy to have number of websites and we have gotten calls, emails and boxes of Mary with us. She is an experienced gardener and not shy lids from throughout the country. about the work necessary. We look forward to helping the Good Samaritan Free Health Center with fresh vegetables.

EC is also hosting a series of webinars on environmental topics every two weeks to continue our mission of educating Our garden will have assistance again this year from the about sustainability. Topics include “Climate Change, Poverty hive of honey bees kept at EC by Dr. Gene Kritsky, MSJU and Refugees,” “Ecospirituality,” “The Earth Charter: A entomologist. They help us pollinate our vegetables and Document for Our Times,” and Journaling with Nature.” flowers and those of gardens within their three-to-five mile Those interested can check out our website, radius. Because there are no students at MSJU to assist Dr. www.scearthconnection.org, for dates and times. Kritsky, S. Winnie is feeding the bees with sugar water until 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,