By Yetta Jager, Green Sanctuary Committee
The UUA sponsored a UUA Green Sanctuary Celebration webinar to give congregations an opportunity to share progress from 2024. We prepared a presentation to summarize our efforts, which was well received. Our activities ranged from tree planting to plastic-free day, from progress on planning to nature-worship services and blogs. Putting together the presentation reminded us of how much we have achieved as a small congregation in a short time. In addition, we were very impressed by the ideas and activities by other UU churches, especially larger ones. In social justice, projects ranged from rebuilding houses in Hendersonville, NC to donating land to build a high-rise with affordable housing!
There’s a lot going on at Westside too! We invite you to share your energy and participation in some of the upcoming Green Sanctuary activities.
• Sustainable Landscaping:
o Thanks to Jerry Thornton for planting our winterberry hollies behind the ramp to our entrance. These hollies are deciduous and dioecious, meaning they drop their leaves and require a male pollinator to produce berries.
o We are talking with the City of Knoxville about providing a demonstration site for a class at UT to help us with a landscape design to improve water quality using Turkey Creek Watershed restoration funds.
• Recycling: Next Sunday, we are planning to meet at Westside at 3 pm to carpool down to KnoxFill, followed by dinner at a restaurant in south Knoxville.
• Environmental Games: Who says we can’t have some fun while we learn about nature and energy? A game night offered as part of the auction will be held to play Wingspan (a game to build bird habitat) and Catan: New Energies (an economic game that now includes renewable as well as fossil energy).
• Tree Planting: The Town of Farragut will be hosting TTD on March 15th, with preparation March 12-14. Trees will be distributed under the big shelter on the north side of the park (next to the restrooms) at McFee Park. If you would like to help, please contact Mark Shipley at mshipley(at)townoffarragut.org.