SJU Green Team
The Green Team of St. John United Lutheran Church (SJU) expresses our congregation’s commitment to honor and care for God’s created world.
Current News:
The St. John United Green Team has just adopted
100 young Western Red Cedar seedlings!
We feel blessed to participate in Grow It Forward, a nonprofit that welcomes volunteers every fall and winter. We’ll be nurturing the trees for future planting at habitat restoration sites. Please take a look at SJU’s “foster trees,” now in the SJU parking lot and click here to read more.
Green Team Mission
- Identify and implement actions to move St. John United to net-zero-emissions status.
- Our actions are based on the understanding that the Biblical command of “dominion” in relation to the Earth means responsible stewardship of this sacred planet.
- The Green Team deeply values ongoing, active collaboration with SJU’s congregation and members of the wider community, including other religious institutions and community groups. Please join us!
How we work
We use community broad-based organizing principles presented by Sound Alliance and the Organizing for Mission Network of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA) to include as many participants as possible in decision-making. We extend our gratitude to Earth Ministry/WAIPL staff who guided our process and certified us as a Greening Congregation.
Goals
Our goals are outlined in our Climate Action Plan, created in collaboration with the excellent consulting firm ArchEcology.
Projects
Engaging neighbors and greening the landscape have been vital to the mission of SJU ever since we established a community garden on the underused parking strip to the west of our building 20 years ago.
We are excited about the multitude of exciting and rewarding projects that are outlined in the Climate Action Plan – expanding the community gardening space, insulating our 1950’s building, reducing fossil fuel use, and planting street trees in our neighborhood, to name a few. Our goal with all of these projects remains the same: advancing climate change participation, getting to net carbon zero, energizing and including neighbors and community.
CURRENT PROJECTS
- Working with Seattle Trees for Neighborhoods Program to plant street trees along the north and east sides of the property to increase the urban tree canopy to capture carbon and cut down on the effects of urban heat island. We planted four filbert trees on Argyle Place N in October 2021 and are working to plant more trees on Phinney Ave.
- Decreasing paved surfaces by expanding our community garden space into the parking lot
FUTURE PROJECTS:
- Building Based Projects: weatherization, efficiencies in insulation, lighting, water, and HVAC (heating, ventilation, air conditioning)
- Operations-based Projects: establish environmentally preferable purchasing building use policies
- Site based projects: rainwater management (rain gardens, cisterns), water and irrigation efficiency, continue to increase pervious, non-paved spaces and expand gardens
- Community Engagement Projects: climate change advocacy, voluntary action campaigns such as Climate Action Pledges
- Solar Panels, Electric Vehicle charging stations
- Meeting EnviroStar requirements
Events
SJU is in the middle of an active and vibrant neighborhood on Phinney Ridge. Our vision is to become a hub for people to come together to learn, brainstorm, and share their passions around environmental issues and activities. As we learn and gather together, we form bonds that strengthen our community and grow our people power.
PAST EVENTS:
- Making bee/insect habitats
- Making beeswax wraps
- Cider Pressing
POTENTIAL FUTURE EVENTS
- Hosting Advocacy and Waste Reduction Events
- Vegan Food Fairs
- Fall Canning Workshops
- Beer Brewing Events
- Building a Seed Library
SJU Community Garden participating in the Greenwood Seafair Parade, 2008 
SJU Community Garden participating in the Greenwood Seafair Parade, 2008 
SJU Community Garden participating in the Greenwood Seafair Parade, 2008 
SJU Community Garden participating in the Greenwood Seafair Parade, 2008 
Laying irrigation at the SJU Community Garden, increasing watering efficiency 
Flowers and herbs make for delicious toppings on a bagel! 
Edible flowers! 
Sitting down on the weeding job. 
Marilyn’s garden looking bountiful. 
SJU’s historic Danish Beech tree 
Fragrant Lavender to attract pollinators 
Spring native Sword ferns 
Native salal 
Raised planting beds made from salvaged lumber 
Raised planting beds made from salvaged lumber, donated wood chips on the path 
Peas climbing on a trellis made from salvaged fence section 
Everyone is welcome! 
Community Garden work day in progress 
Housing for pollinating Mason bees 
Pollinators at work 
And more pollinators at work 
What kind of pollinators are these? 
Critters abound 
Strawberries as ground cover to suppress weeds 
One of our younger gardeners 
Adding to the compost bin 
The Woodland Park Zoo is a wonderful resource for fertilizer, aka “Zoo Doo” 
Shoveling Zoo Doo, doesn’t get any better 
Who needs Zoo Doo? 
Shoveling Zoo Doo in the rain 
The rain won’t stop, and neither will we 
Planting and securing trees 
Pruning the fruit trees to increase production 
Measure twice, cut once 
Marking stormwater drains with stencils supplied by the City of Seattle 
All stormwater drains lead to Puget Sound 
Making beeswax wraps, as an alternative to plastic wrap 
Beeswax wrap project wrapping up successfully 
Beeswax wraps from fabric donated by SJU’s quilting group, Fabric Fantasy 
Organic apples used to make cider 
Apples ready to press at the SJU fall cider press event 
Apple press is ready to go 
Everyone steps up to help press apples 
Working with the Seattle Trees for Neighborhoods Program, we planted four street trees along the north side of our property. As these four Turkish filberts grow, they will capture carbon and minimize the urban heat island effect. According to the Arbor Day Foundation, in one year a mature tree will absorb more than 48 pounds of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and release oxygen in exchange.
Partnerships
Many folks have been working long and hard on these issues of environmental work and community organizing. SJU is grateful to partner with and learn from these dedicated organizations:
- Earth Ministry
Earth Ministry envisions a just and sustainable future in which people of all spiritual traditions fully embrace their faith’s call to environmental stewardship. Earth Ministry transforms faith into action for the well-being of communities and the environment. We organize people of faith to advocate for strong environmental policies and provide strategic guidance to religious communities working toward environmental justice. - ArchEcology
ArchEcology is a woman-owned architectural consulting firm with experience in design, engineering and construction. Passion for sustainability, combined with knowledge of the design and construction industry, provides practical, cost-effective, sustainable strategies that align with traditional development goals. - Sound Alliance
Sound Alliance is an alliance of faith, labor, health education and community organizations dedicated to building a base of everyday civic leaders to effectively stand for change they want to see in their communities. - Organizing for Mission Network
The Organizing for Mission Network is a community of practitioners who are using the arts and skills of community organizing to develop and redevelop gospel-centric communities that act for the sake of the world. Our work includes working with a base of people to identify concerns within a community, research innovative solutions, and build power towards creating systemic change. We are rooted in neighborhoods, see ourselves as accountable to people before programs, and are working together to sharpen our analysis of the social/economic/political factors affecting our communities. This group has made an explicit commitment to include participants who come from communities often underrepresented in the life of the church (i.e. low-income, people of color, immigrant communities etc) in order to give life and active participation to the Seattle area cohort.
Resources
We have been lucky to receive the help of educated and experienced professionals. We would like to especially thank the following people for their support and guidance:
- Lynn Knapp, Seattle Public Utilities
- Katherine Morgan, ArchEcology
- Andy Gerde, Trade Ally Network
- Jordan Pratt, NEEA
- Lou Stubecki, Trees for Neighborhoods, City of Seattle
Get Involved
You, your family, friends, and neighbors are welcome to join us on climate action projects! If you are part of another community we would like to connect with you to explore mutual interests and concerns for the common good. Message SJU on Facebook our church office at (206)784-1040.
