GWIPL Newsletter: July 2007

IN THIS ISSUE
Annual Survey
Being Cool
Work for a Day
Join the Cool Capital Challenge
Meet our Summer Interns
Upcoming Events
Save the Date

Please Return Our Survey
On Monday, June 25, your congregation's environmental leaders should have received our annual survey via email. If you did not receive the survey, you can access it at http://www.gwipl.org/documents/GWIPLSurvey.doc. If you have questions or want to see if someone else in your congregation already filled it out, please contact Allison or Gina at 202-885-8684.

This survey will help us better understand your congregation's involvement in actions to reduce global warming and how we can be more helpful to you and others in the future. Your actions are a living endorsement of our growing mission - a religious response to global warming is not only possible, but achievable. We will share the harvest of our combined actions with you and help to further green the greater religious community.

We are encouraging the over 250 congregations in our network to fill out this important document by Friday, July 6 and return it to Gina Gonzalez, Program and Education Intern at education@gwipl.org. Alternately you can mail the survey to GWIPL, c/o CCTPP, 4500 Massachusetts Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20016.

Being Cool In May, the Al Fatih Academy, a Muslim educational institution in Herndon, Virginia, participated in our youth education program. Bynum Hoekstra, our Youth Education Fellow, worked with the youth on understanding the connections between their faith and the environment. Activities included the one pictured above, where they learned how much CO2 they use in their own lives. They then made commitments to reduce CO2 at home, at school, and in their congregation. If you would like GWIPL to facilitate this program at your congregation in the fall for your youth group, please contact Allison at 202-885-8684 or Allison@gwipl.org.

Work for a Day
Am Kolel, a Jewish Renewal Community in Montgomery County, Maryland, is welcoming families, individuals, and groups to come this summer and volunteer on their social justice garden. On this one acre organic garden, volunteers are growing and cultivating nutritious and delicious vegetables. The vegetables will be donated to Shepherd's Table, a local soup kitchen. This helps those in need have a balanced diet and cuts down on the average 1,500 miles it takes for food to travel from the farm to our plates. If you or a group from your congregation would like to volunteer or for more details, please contact Matt at 301-349-2799 or 240-994-8656.

Join the Cool Capital Challenge
Are you struggling to engage your entire congregation in saving the planet? Have you ever wondered how much carbon dioxide all of the member families in your congregation could save? By joining the Cool Capital Challenge you can do both. This is a community wide effort to reduce CO2 pollution by 1 billion pounds by Earth Day 2008. The Challenge has already reached 26% of this goal, but we need you to be involved to get the rest of the way there. To sign up for the challenge and access more information, please visit http://www.gwipl.org/Coolcapitalchallenge.asp

Meet our Summer Interns
This summer we are very lucky to have two summer interns:

• Aviva Birnkrant is originally from Bethesda, MD and is a rising Junior at Washington University in St. Louis. Aviva is working on development - grant writing and planning our end of the year celebration. You can contact her at development@gwipl.org
• Gina Gonzalez is originally from Southern California and is a rising Junior at Northwestern University. Gina is working on a family education program, our survey and report, and outreach to low-income communities. You can contact her at education@gwipl.org

Please feel free to Send them an email to thank them for all of their hard work over the summer.

Also, we extend our thanks to Bynum Hoekstra who served as Youth Education Fellow this winter and spring. Bynum is now working at Conservation International.

Upcoming Events
Wednesday, July 18 at 7:30pm - Discover How Your Parish Can Help Cool the Planet
Join Social Concerns workers and members of Pax Christi from your and other Montgomery County Catholic parishes for a presentation by Allison Fisher, Coordinator of GWIPL. Learn WHY your parish should be a leader in sustaining a healthy planet. Learn HOW practical changes can be made in parish buildings to save money and how doing so can ensure a healthy future for all people. Learn WHAT other congregations in the Washington Metro area are already doing to protect creation as this area undergoes warmer summers, glaciers melt in Alaska, and Africa is projected to have more famines. Please RSVP to Mary Popkin by July 9: 301-587-5079 or send an email. Let phone ring six times to reach voicemail. This program will be at St. John the Evangelist, 10103 Georgia Avenue, Silver Spring, MD.

Thursday, July 26 at 7pm - Creation Care Series
Please join us for the 7th session of our very exciting Creation Care Series on at Christ Evangelical Lutheran Church, 8011 Old Georgetown Road, Bethesda, MD 20814. This month's topic is recycling. A representative from Montgomery County will talk about how to recycle in our own community. Please bring your old cell phones and get ready to take action at the workshop! A volunteer with Secure the Call will talk about their exciting efforts to reuse old cell phones for those in need, like the elderly and victims of domestic violence. For more information please visit http://www.gwipl.org/creationcareforum.asp. Co-sponsored by GWIPL and open to the public.

Go to the GWIPL Event Calendar

Save the Date - More Details Coming Soon
Sunday, October 14 - First ever GWIPL Annual Conference
Thursday, November 29 - Our second annual end of the year celebration and fundraiser

Support GWIPL today
You can make a secure online donation at http://www.gwipl.org/support_us.asp. Every dollar helps us to protect creation.

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