“It ain’t easy bein’ green.” Kermit the Frog has been telling us this for years, and it is certainly true of parish work.

Many of us hear from our teens and parishioners about the overuse of disposable products and other ecologically insensitive, yet cost-efficient practices, of our parish lives. This past fall, our parish offered a seven week adult formation course on the spirituality of the environment. During our time together, our formation team made a commitment to ‘go green’ during this program year.

Here is a listing of some of the specific steps we have taken to be greener at Good Shepherd Parish:

• Ask parishioners for donations of dishes, glasses and mugs. We all have collections of treasured mugs; many of us are willing to share them. We received several complete sets of dishes, eliminating our reliance on paper and Styrofoam plates, cups and silverware.
• Make friends with the cafeteria staff. We learned how to use the industrial dishwasher in the school cafeteria. We stack the dishes on a cart at the end of the evening and visit with the cafeteria folks as they are quickly washed and sanitized in the morning. An added benefit: those leftover cinnamon rolls and snicker doodles are now finding their way into the staff workroom!
• Provide recycling boxes for the parish and school staff. The lids from cases of paper are a perfect size. A thirty gallon trash can in the workroom makes for a convenient drop-off site.
• Have large recycling containers dropped off in your parking lot. Not only are we being more responsible stewards, we are making money.
• Shopping at garage sales and thrift stores provided us with tablecloths and napkins. Whoever uses these returns them washed and folded for the next group.
• Invest in a ‘green cart.’ The cart is loaded up with clean dishes and table settings and left in a convenient spot for the staff to access. The only rule is that it be returned, in a clean and ready-to-go state by the next day.

Our experience with ‘going green’ at the parish has been positive. We have built relationships, broken-down some barriers, and even made some money for the parish. With a bit of effort from all of us, our community has, in a small way, found that the glass really is greener on the environmental side of the fence.