More Recycling through TerraCycle

So far we have recycled over 1,700 drink pouches and now you can recycle even more "trash" to earn money for Grace Church. We are now collecting:

• Cookie Wrappers
• Coffee Bags
• Chip Bags
• Candy Bar Wrappers
• and of course the Juice Pouches

Please start saving your wrappers and bags to bring to church.  You can leave them by the recycling in the kitchen.  You can combine all the wrappers/bags/pouches into plastic grocery bags and I'll sort them.  TerraCycle will take the wrappers and turn them into heavy duty trash cans that should be available at some point through Home Depot.

If you are doing Coffee Hour please save the empty coffee bags.

Details from TerraCycle:
We accept any empty brand or size chip bag.

We are collecting all brands and sizes of cookie wrappers such as Nabisco® and Keebler®. Unfortunately we do not accept the inner trays of cookie wrappers, so please remove them before sending your shipment.

We accept any brand and any size coffee bag.

We will accept any brand and size candy wrappers. Please keep in mind that we donate *$0.02 for all candy wrappers. We do not accept candy boxes or gum packaging. Please note: If you have gum packages, please join the Gum Package Brigade to send in your gum packaging.

We accept any kind of brand of drink pouches. We do not accept juice boxes (but they can be recycled in Medford's co-mingled residential recycling).

If you have any questions, please ask me, Jonathan Hunt.

Join Grace Church for a Weatherization Barn-Raising Party

Are you interested in learning how to save energy and money at home?  Come learn new skills while helping to weatherize Grace Church in Medford.

When: Monday, August 30th 4-8PM
Where: Grace Church, 160 High St, Medford, MA

Please sign up in advance

We will have experienced energy savers on hand to teach you techniques to save energy and conserve water. Learn hands on by applying these techniques on our church and then take your new skills home and apply them there.

Projects to be undertaken include:

• window & door air sealing
• water conservation
• programmable thermostats
• and more.

We can also use more leaders who are already skilled in these areas to help teach and coordinate others.

We will be joined by a group of incoming freshmen from the CAFE group at Tufts. After the afternoon of working together, we will all celebrate with some pizza in the common room.  Even if you cannot join us at the start, please sign up and come by after work on Monday.

On site childcare is available for those who request it in advance (through the registration system).

This barn-raising is organized in part by HEET Cambridge.  

Thanks,
Jonathan, Alicia and Rachael

Talk to your Senator About Climate Change

Our elected officials cannot represent us if they do not hear from us, their constituents, on the issues at hand.  Climate Change Legislation is going to be debated in the United States Senate and now is the time to let your senators know how you feel about it.

Last week Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown voted for the Murkoswki Resolution that would have stripped the EPA's authority to regulate green house gas emissions.  Those opposed to the bill, like Massachusetts Senator John Kerry, termed it the "Dirty Air Act."

On the morning of the US Senate vote, I called Senator Brown's office to let him know that I thought the best action for Massachusetts, the US and the world would be to oppose the resolution.  I spoke to Laura and she took down my opinion.  An organization like 1Sky.org makes it easy to contact your elected officials by providing tools for looking them up based on your zip code and then providing you with guidance about what to say.

Another way to get involved and let your opinion be known is by joining with organizations, like Massachusetts Interfaith Power and Light and the Massachusetts Council of Churches, as they contact our elected officials. Grace Church is an active member of both of these organizations.  They are currently seeking signatures on a petition in support of the Kerry-Liberman, American Power Act.  You can get a summary of the legislation and the campaign by clicking on the poster above.

On Sunday, I will be collecting signatures for their petition in support of their efforts.  I welcome the opportunity to discuss the topic with you during coffee hour especially if you have a different position on this important topic.  Please see me Sunday to add your name to the signatures or to discuss it further.

The opportunity to debate issues and disagree on topics is one of the things that makes our nation great.

See you Sunday and don't forget it will be Father's Day!

Sincerely,
Jonathan Hunt

Our 2nd box of Juice Pouches enroute to NJ

We mailed our second box of juice pouches to be upcycled by TerraCycle today. This box was a bit bigger than the last one weighing in at 10.5 pounds. We'll see how many pouches that works out to when TerraCycle weighs them. As the school year is winding down, I expect that the supply of juice pouches will also dwindle over the summer. You can still bring them to the kitchen for recycling and we'll collect them, but it will probably be the fall before we send the 3rd box of juice pouches to TerraCycle.

A special thank you to the 3 kids that have done so much to collect juice pouches so far. At next Wednesday's Celebration, we will recognize these three over achievers with a small token of appreciation.

We are also collecting foil coffee packages like Starbucks and the ones we use on Sunday for Coffee Hour.  More soon on that.

Working together in the Lord's name we can move mountains (of leaves)

Today, with the wind blowing hard and the sun shining, a few people started to gather, and then more and eventually we had a crowd gathered together. As Mathew wrote,

"For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them." Matthew 18:20

The Lord was certainly there in our midst as we toiled and labored to clean up Wright's Pond.  We had an amazing showing from Grace Church, the community of Medford and beyond.  In the short span of a few hours, a few more than 75 people (21 from Grace) collected 113 bags of lawn waste, a half dozen big bags of garbage and several bags of recyclables from around the pond and along the trails.  We also cleaned, scraped and painted three picnic tables, the Wright's Pond letters and the main gate, not to mention all the planting and weeding done in the various flower beds.

In addition to the amazing outcomes from today's work, including some statements like "I have to check that Grace place out" and "Maybe I'll switch teams to Catholic lite," we also experienced some miraculous generosity from the parish and community.  I have been pleasantly shocked by how generous our local businesses have been for this worthy cause.  We had a wonderful lunch today thanks to Kelly's Roast Beef, Mayor Michael J. McGlynn & Whole Foods Medford.  The City of Medford provided tons of tools and supplies as well as access to the parking and bathrooms at Wright's Pond.  We had delicious coffee thanks to the Magnificent Muffin & Bagel Shoppe as well as numerous individual contributors that helped make this amazing day possible.  The Friends of Wright's Pond helped to organize and publicize today's event and we had gloves and pokers thanks to the Friends of the Mystic River.  Thank you to everyone else who volunteered today and help make it happen.

And we are not stopping here.  Next Saturday, we are doubling the stakes and taking on the cleanup of two parks:

Saturday, May 22nd 9-11am

• Barry Park (Chris DesAutels)
• Carr Park (Linda Rogers)

Join us and sign up to volunteer or donate something for GreenUp CleanUp!

Enjoy the slideshow from the event: