current working version of the environmental assessment

This document reflects revsions we made at the GSC meeting on Wednesday, November 4.

UUFA Environmental Assessment

The Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Ames (UUFA) is a diverse congregation of just over 300 members and 170 youth, and we employ a full-time minister, a full-time director of youth and children’s ministries, and a part-time office administrator (25-hour) and a part-time music coordinator (10-hour). We occupy a modern steel and concrete building near the campus of Iowa State University (ISU), with large plate glass windows along parts of the east and west arcs of the round, multi-use worship area, known as the Fellowship Hall. On Sundays the chairs are often set up to face the west window, which looks out upon a hillside of grasses, flowers and trees, a vivid reminder of our connectedness to the earth.

The UUFA’s History with the Seventh Principle

The Fellowship’s philosophy of shared ministry depends upon the creativity, commitment, caring, vision, discernment and institutional knowledge of its members, working together. The scientific inquiry that takes place at ISU, feeds into the Fellowship. Members include, but are not limited to, activists, educators and researchers who focus professionally and personally on improving land and energy use and water quality in Ames and beyond. Many have connections to this land’s productivity and many of us—63% of those who responded to our survey of the congregation, Present practices of our congregation: UUFA’s environmental footprint—grow plants for food. The active engagement of such gifts in our community life has drawn the UUFA toward a fuller commitment to and expression of the Seventh Principle.

Interest in becoming a Green Sanctuary congregation dates to October, 2002, when Erv Klaas, then chair of the UUFA Environmental Committee gave a Sunday morning service about the process. Since then, a “Green Corner” column has run in our monthly newsletter. In the summer of 2007, the Fellowship held a four-week series of Sunday morning programs on environmental sustainability, a combination of minister- and lay-led services that produced wide-ranging conversations about what we could do as a congregation.

Early in 2009, Klaas obtained approval for a Green Sanctuary application from the UUFA Board, then addressed a meeting of the UUFA Council of Committees and encouraged each committee representative to imagine out loud about how their work could become “greener.” Many committees began to develop green plans and projects. And, in the decentralized manner in which the UUFA’s shared ministry occurs, these groups have gone ahead and implemented some of these plans—before they could be codified into a Green Sanctuary Action Plan. In short, the UUFA is not standing still in its quest for deeper enactment of the Seventh Principle, and if this assessment appears somewhat blurry, it is only because what we are attempting to describe is amorphous and moving.

Worship and Celebration

Worship and celebration are strengths in our Fellowship’s existing enactment of environment principles.

Worship Activities

Over the past three years, 23% of our Sunday morning programs focused on awareness of natural rhythms, the interrelationships among human and biotic communities, our role in sustaining the planet, and the considerable challenges we face in doing so. In fall 2008 our minister, Rev. Dr. Brian Eslinger, taught a graduate class at ISU on religion and the environment, and developed several sermons from it. Green issues are also paramount for several of our talented lay presenters, who come to these issues from different sensibilities.

Several seasonal rituals serve as the pillars for our celebration of nature. Like many UU congregations, we have a Flower Communion in the spring, and we celebrate a Salsa Communion in late summer and an Apple Communion in the fall. As our annual early fall ingathering, members bring water from their summer travels or experiences. The Sunday services closest to the equinoxes usually focus on the turning of the seasons, and we celebrate Earth Day annually. Finally, one member family hosts a fellowship-wide bonfire at their farm every winter and a summer solstice; at one recent celebration, they held a dedication ceremony for their newly erected 2.3kW wind turbine.

Incidental services also focus on environmental issues. Recent topics have included global warming, understanding land-as-community, and a youth-powered food revolution. Two musicians who celebrate the earth, Jim Scott and Peter Mayer, have graced our Fellowship Hall in the past year.

Celebrations

The celebration of nature extends to Sunday noon congregational meals held in the Fireside Room and Fellowship Hall about four times a year, a summer picnic at a nearby city park, and holiday potlucks at the Fellowship on Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day. The Sunday noon meals began solely as soup lunches that had been a UUFA tradition with a focus on fund-raising. However, that tradition died for a few years, then was resurrected in February 2007.

The noon meals involve many volunteers signing up in advance to bring food to be served in a buffet line to feed any members, friends, or visitors who wish to come.  The focus is on fine food and camaraderie with no required payment. However, there has been a basket for free will donations which have gone to various projects but primarily is deposited in the fellowship meals fund. That fund is supplemented with other monies: proceeds from the redemption of beverage bottles and cans taken to the recycling center by a UUFA member with her bicycle and trailer, donations put in a jar in the Fireside Room at a sharing table of member-grown produce, and the occasional sale of “treasures” following the de-cluttering of UU rooms. Although some of the fund is used for other purposes such as buying an electric knife to cut bread or meat, its primary use is to purchase locally-grown food for UUFA meals.

Over the past two years, the meals have evolved. One aesthetically-impressive element was the addition of homemade calico tablecloths and napkins in the summer of 2007. Also, for aesthetics and to set a subtle example, centerpiece vases, we use emerald-green olive oil bottles in the spirit of reduce, reuse, and recycle. And toward that principle of conservation, we have attractive posters in the kitchen asking people to participate.

Recently we started a tradition of Iowa-grown meals. The first was a brunch in August 2007 with members and friends gathering in the kitchen the previous day to make pasta and sauce. The second was in February 2008, and the third in February 2009. A fourth is planned for January 24, 2010, and the UU Sunday morning program committee is linking the program that morning to the meal. The tentative title is “Rootedness vs. Parochialism.”

The Fellowship’s promotion of locally grown food has extended into other meals as well. For instance, one member often brings jars of homemade pickles with one placed on each table, and each jar has a label telling the source of the ingredients. The fellowship meals fund pays for Iowa-grown turkey and ham for the holiday meals and sweet corn and watermelon from within a 100-mile radius as well as Ames-brewed root beer for our 2009 picnic. And we often purchase ice cream from a small, local, family-owned creamery to complement desserts such as apple crisp. For our October 2009 chili cook-off (a modified soup lunch), many who made cornbread for the event used freshly-ground non-GMO corn from a central Iowa family farm, and the dessert special was sweet potato pie using locally-grown potatoes. As another illustration of the kinds of activities we have done, and hope to do more of, we hosted a canning session held in the UUFA kitchen in September 2009 when a small group of people canned 16 quarts of tomatoes with locally-grown tomatoes for later UU use.

Although many UUFA members and friends contribute to the success of these meals, an important step was taken in the fall of 2008, when our soup lunch coordinator, Helen Gunderson, recruited a meals planning group that strives to be sensitive to and responsive to the environmental issues connected to food. As the meals group grows in its creativity, not only offering unique meals but in discerning needs of people and how best to use our limited social space, attendance at the meals appears to be increasing, not only in number but in festivity. The noon meals attract between 70 to 90 people, with more than 120 attending an Easter Day potluck. The Thanksgiving and Christmas meals attract about 40 people.

Gunderson has also worked to build a communications infrastructure for UUFA members and friends with gardening interests. That includes a Web site and Yahoo message board. Both will eventually become part of the official UUFA Web site when it’s update is completed. Also related to green activities is the UUFA Free Exchange Yahoo group which is akin to, but not connected to, the Freecycle movement.

One member of the congregation initiated a garden program at the Ames Boys and Girls Club, and others planted and harvested a symbolic, container garden on the UUFA grounds, symbolic  because of limitations imposed by shade, poor soil, or available space. It was refreshing to see the scarlet runner bean vines and tall sunflowers and novel to harvest sweet potatoes grown at the Fellowship.

The Fellowship also supported an informal group of people—the Iowa Agriculture and Arts Network—that worked with Gunderson and other UUFA members–to hold an Iowa-grown dinner in January 2009 at the Fellowship that was attended by about 70 people. Gunderson showed two of her videos about changes in rural Iowa and the importance of locally grown food.

The UUFA is home to the Gallery in the Round. The Art Committee, which oversees the gallery, has invited several artists who reflect upon Seventh Principle themes to display their work. In the past year, such exhibitions have included drawings and outdoor installations by John Siblik, an environmental artist who works with willow and other natural materials; eggshell and pastel paintings by artist Ingrid Lilligren, who reflected in her artist’s statement on the environmental dilemmas of her profession of “object making”; and a series of photographs by the Paddlers that celebrated canoeing and kayaking on Iowa rivers and streams.

Religious Education

The number of children in our religious education program has grown rapidly in recent years. Children attend RE classes at 9 or 11am on Sundays, during the adult services. Every other week, the children start the hour in the Fellowship Hall before being invited to their upstairs classrooms. They are especially included in portions of the seasonal communion or ritual celebrations. Middle-school and high-school students meet at 11am only, and the high-school students also have a well-attended Wednesday-night youth group.

Our upstairs classrooms (PS/K–6th grade) are well situated to encourage appreciation of nature, with a sliding glass door leading to a patio, a wooded outdoor play area, and a hiking path up the hill. During the summers, the transition between outdoors and indoors is practically seamless. At summer camp this year, the children spent about two hours a day outdoors. Opportunities to observe the changes of the seasons are woven into lessons throughout the year. Further, we share classroom space with a Waldorf preschool.

Lori Allen, our director of youth and children’s ministries, wrote and implemented “Stories of our World Family,” an elementary curriculum last year that focuses on the Seventh Principle and includes activities such as observing the conditions that hinder and help plant growth, learning about George Washington Carver and Rachel Carson, and studying stories about other cultures’ spiritual connections to nature (e.g., the importance of the Ganges River to Hindus). This year, Allen wrote a nine-month curriculum organized around the four elements (earth, water, air, and fire). In addition to the classroom curriculum, each element will be celebrated by a multi-age outdoor event. Water, for example, was celebrated by children and their parents on a creek-walk with a professional naturalist.

Preschoolers, middle-schoolers, and teens also participate in the UUFA’s culture of nature awareness. Last year, preschoolers had a 10-week unit on the natural world; middle-school students volunteered to help with recycling and outdoor clean-up; and teens chose to go on two camping trips. The youth’s biennial Boston Heritage trip always includes a trip to Walden Pond.

Adult religious education at the UUFA is generated by the minister and the membership committee and arises spontaneously and is organized according to the interests and needs of individuals and groups. Groups such as the Skadberg Science Circle and Women’s Spirituality meet biweekly or monthly to read books about and discuss shared interests, including environmental topics. Prairie Fire, the UUFA young adult group, focuses on earth-centered practices, and the Prairie Sage Circle is an Earth-based spirituality group. UUFA members and friends participate in the reading of Aldo Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac, an annual Ames community event. We offered two of Northwest Earth Institute’s discussion courses, “Choices for Sustainable Living” (2007) and “Global Warming: Changing CO2ourse” (2008), and we plan additional courses in the future.

Environmental Justice

Forty-eight members (about 15% of UUFA members) are members of the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, which has Environmental Justice as one of its four focus areas.

The UUFA donates half of its monthly undesignated offering to local or national social justice organizations. Most of these focus on the immediate (i.e., non-environmental) needs of local homeless people, battered women, disadvantaged youth, and those who face food insecurity or need help with electric bills, as well as those focusing on GLBT and freedom-of-religion advocacy. In an early response to the Green Sanctuary Certification process, the newly formed Social Justice committee designated April as the month to financially support an environmental organization; in April 2009, we sent more than $600 to the local Squaw Creek Watershed Coalition, and the September 2009 amount went to the international organization Water For People.

In addition to donating half of our undesignated offerings, the UUFA gives 1% of its annual budget as membership dues to A Mid-Iowa Organizing Strategy (AMOS), a congregation-based community organization serving Ames and Des Moines that advocates for social change. The environment is one of AMOS’s four focus areas. In 2008, UUFA members and friends helped AMOS in Ames lobby city government and ISU for greater consideration of greenhouse gas emissions and conduct “Ames, Be Cool” forum as a project of the U.S. Mayors Climate Protection Agreement and Cool Cities Initiative, which included preparation and distribution of an action guide to educate people about environmental practices and options.

Fellowship members who have traveled to visit our sister congregation in Tordatfalva, Romania, have reported receiving an education in sustainable living. The villagers live off the land with  few inputs. Our work there has included fixing up an empty pastor’s residence for use as a guest house and low-impact tourism destination point; the larger picture is to help this shrinking rural village retain at least some of the younger generation.

The UUFA is part of the Alternative Gift Market program for the holiday season. The gifts purchased through it—e.g., tree plantings, domesticated animals for third-world families, donations to grassroots groups—are frequently in keeping with environmental justice. Finally, the Social Justice committee planted and tended a vegetable garden at the Boys and Girls Club of Ames this summer to provide inspiration for children who might not otherwise have access to that experience.

Sustainable Living

Almost all of the UUFA’s sustainable living measures are best described as practices rather than policies. Nonetheless, over the past several years, a great deal of effort has been focused on greening the UUFA physical plant.

One policy, however, is explicit: all UUFA events and classes are directed to use the Fellowship’s dinnerware, cups and silverware rather than disposable products. This policy extends to renters of the building. Three years ago, cloth napkins were sewn to replace paper napkins at Fellowship Meals. The recycling of our cans, plastic bottles, and paper is done weekly by a volunteer on her bicycle and trailer.

Paper Products / Plastic Recycling

Paper conservation began in earnest several years ago. Postcard meeting reminders were replaced with emails. Two-thirds of those on the general mailing list receive the monthly newsletter (usually 12 pages) in digital form. The paper purchased for the office is generally post-consumer recycled paper. The newsletter—which is printed off-site—is not post-consumer recycled. A paper recycling bin is placed near the exit of Fellowship Hall, so that attendees of the 11am service can conveniently drop their programs in it as they leave (people who attend the 9am service are encouraged to leave programs on their seats). Programs are generally kept to one double-sided 8½ x 11 sheet.

Energy Use

With the introduction of programmable thermostats, the Fellowship’s utility bills were $2000 under budget last year. The thermostats can program as many as four different temperatures per day; each week, the volunteer building and grounds manager studies the upcoming schedule of events and programs the thermostats accordingly. Last year, gaskets were replaced on the Fellowship’s metal doors to keep out drafts.

Our 200W incandescent bulbs are being gradually replaced by 40W fluorescent bulbs, and we use halogen bulbs for spot-lighting in the Gallery in the Round. Curtains on the plate glass windows of Fellowship Hall are opened to let in natural light. There is also a large skylight in the room.

Water Use and Management

The Fellowship’s water comes from our municipal utility in Ames, Iowa.  The city obtains its water from 22 wells drilled in to a large shallow aquifer contained in ancient glacial river beds. The aquifer is recharged from surface water that infiltrates through streams and rivers that overlay the aquifer.

The City of Ames Water Pollution Control Facility recently received a Platinum-18 Peak Performance Award by the National Association of Clean Water Agencies. This award recognizes the facility’s 100 percent compliance for 18 consecutive years with their National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit. This record dates back to the initial start-up of the current facility in 1989.  It is the longest compliance record in the State of Iowa, and is the third longest in the nation. The Water and Pollution Control Department operate solely on revenue. No tax funds are used for any part of the operations.

The Fellowship uses water to furnish the needs of six toilets (two with low-flow commodes), two drinking water fountains, and two kitchens, a satellite kitchen with a microwave and a catering kitchen. The catering kitchen has two double sinks and a commercial dishwasher that cleans and sanitizes in one operation; the dishwasher is served by a separate hot water heater. We do not irrigate our grounds.

Chemical Products.

We switched to non-toxic cleaning products several years ago. Vinegar and water is used for glass, and Dr. Bronner’s products in different dilutions are used for other surfaces. Unfortunately, the dishwasher does use toxic, corrosive chemicals. The wood “dance” floor in Fellowship Hall is sealed with a non-VOC (volatile organic chemical) coating. No chemicals are used in the landscape upkeep. Sodium chloride (mild freeze) and calcium chloride (deep freeze) are used on the sidewalks.

Transportation, Parking, and Landscaping

Although most of the people who come to the Fellowship drive, biking is on the increase, at least during summer months, and we provide a secure bike rack. Bike paths and a city bus route pass directly in front of our building. Buses run on a 20-minute schedule during the week and 40-minutes on weekends. We do not have a formal car-pool program in place at the present time, but we hope to respond to interest in this as a possibility.

Parking is a critical issue at the UUFA and has restricted our growth to some extent. On most Sundays, our two small parking lots are quickly filled, and others must park on a residential street 300 yards up a steep hill. Some people must walk as much as a third of a mile from their car to the Fellowship. In 2008, we bought a residential property adjacent to our current site and voted to use it to enlarge the parking lot. This meant removal of a large cottonwood tree and a house and garage. We were able to move the house rather than destroy it. We investigated permeable pavement for the new parking area, but the high water table precluded this option. To offset the removal of the cottonwood, a Fellowship youth led volunteers in planting six evergreens on the west hillside.

Landscaping has been planned carefully in relation to the site. Ginkgo trees, which handle air pollution, line the east Hyland Ave. edge. Ground cover holds the soil on the south hill, with a small lawn on the east. The west hill behind the Fellowship is landscaped naturally, with un-mown grasses, native prairie flowers, and trees lining the perimeter. Paths and the play area in the back are paved with woodchips. At least one gutter drain is equipped with a chain, which slows the fall of water so that the soils beneath it are not eroded. This year a symbolic vegetable garden with sunflowers, tomatoes, and beans was planted along a main entrance to the building.

Building addition

A new wing of the building was added in 2003. At that time, many green designs were imagined but had to be abandoned due to cost, including ground source heating and a green roof. However, a recent bequest provides funds specifically for roof solar panels; however, we must first replace the roof. The capital campaign for the parking lot and roof is partially completed.

Community Involvement

The UUFA is a contributing member of Good Neighbor Emergency Assistance, a local non-profit organization that provides individual and family social services to the community, including quality education opportunities for people with disabilities, free care-giver referrals for in-home assisted living services, and mental health counseling. Every Tuesday for more than 21 years, UUFA members and friends have provided the evening meal to residents at the Emergency Residence Project Shelter, which provides temporary lodging, meals, and other support to homeless people.

Members of our Fellowship serve as volunteers on boards and commissions that serve the city, county, and state. For example, members monitor water quality in our local streams as part of a state-wide IOWATER program sponsored by the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, and help with prairie restoration on a state prairie preserve managed by The Nature Conservancy.

Other

The UUFA has no policy regarding the social or environmental responsibility of the funds or companies in which it invests its endowment—now valued at $_____. Although there is no UUFA-wide carpooling effort, one member has offered small green beads to put on a safety pin, for every trip to the Fellowship a member makes by foot, by bike, or by carpool. A highly functional user-based website was created this year to allow virtual conversations among members of the UUFA’s various committees, and we hope that this new communication venue may decrease the frequency of meetings, and hence, our environmental footprint.