EarthCare at UCP

We at Unity Center of Peace have adopted Unity’s EarthCare Initiative with enthusiasm.  If you would like to contribute to our mission or become a member of the UCP Earthcare Team please email Cheryl Stevens at .  We welcome your inspired ideas for how we can become more earth-friendly. For more details on our Earthcare Ministry Team GO HERE.

 

After the team was launched in September 2019, we dedicated that entire month to the idea of “Loving Our Planet” and wove talks and presentations around this topic. The month ended with an EarthCare Covenant Service where we ceremonially agreed to, and signed, the EarthCare Covenant that we had developed under the direction of our EarthCare Team.  The convenant is proudly hung in our front foyer. 

UNITY CENTER OF PEACE EARTHCARE COVENANT

Our consciousnes reveals that all of creation is connected as one.  The story of creation reveals our role as good caregivers.  As a people committed to spiritual awakening, we pledge now to renew our reverence for life and to respect the interdependent web of all existence.

We honor our sacred promise to balance our individual needs with those of nature.  We envision a world in which everything has intrinsic value, and where all beings are assured a secure and meaningful life that is ecologically responsible and sustainable.

We agree to align our individual and shared lives in a way that demonstrates our respect for our planet and for each other.  We vow to walk upon the Earth for the greatest good of all creation.

Read more: EarthCare at UCP

Unity Center of Peace Composting Program

Do you feel a little guilty when throwing food waste into the garbage can? Find yourself wondering if that waste could be enriching the soil that grows our food instead of rotting in a landfill?

If this speaks to you, UCP has a solution! We’ve contracted with CompostNow to collect all our food waste, and we’re passing on this opportunity to our members. For $10 a month, you can bring your personal food waste to our recycling container at UCP and know that it will be picked up weekly and put to good use! If you're unable to swing the $10 per month feel free to drop a dollar or two in our Compost Tip Jar anytime - located in the kitchen.

SIGN UP HERE

Most everything that can’t be recycled can be composted. This makes it super easy because you don’t have to think much on what not to include. Here’s a short list of what can be composted:
- fruits and veggies;
- meat, fish and bones;
- eggshells and bread;
- paper towels and napkins;
- coffee grounds, filters, and tea bags
- and many others.

Composting is a high impact Earth Care program that shows our love and care for Mother Earth! To learn more check out the information from the NC Composting Coucil.

docxwhy_compost.docx

For questions about our UCP Composting program contact Cheryl Stevens at.

Adopt-A-Highway

UCP has been participating in North Carolina's Adopt-a-Hwy program since 2018. We have adoped our home location - Seawell School Road and clean-ups happen four Saturdays each year. This is a great way for us to care for our environment and show love for it and our neighbors. 

Join us at our next Outreach opportunity and receive the gifts of service.  We'll provide safety vests, pickup tools etc., and lots of fun!  With 12 or more people, we can easily clean our adopted highway (Seawell School Rd.) in the allotted time. The more the merrier!  Although NCDOT guidelines allow only children over 12.  And, children between the ages of 12-17 are required to have a parent present and sign a Youth Participation Release Form.

Be sure to wear long pants and long sleeves, sturdy, closed toe shoes, bring water, and anything you need to be comfortable outdoors.

Read more: Adopt-A-Highway

Monthly Eco-Tip

 

 

Eco-friendly Tip for the Month of March

You can deter wildlife from your landscaping and garden, humanely and helpfully.  Instead of poison and traps, which are an affront to the sacredness of all life, consider including plants that entice, deter, and have wildlife feed where you want them to.  Give deer plants like elderberry and chard, to spare your hostas and vegetables.  Obscure the view-- include tall grasses and tactile barriers, and add native plants which wildlife prefers to cultivated ones. Rotate repellents:  hang scented soap in laundry bags, create makeshift scarecrows, scatter crushed red pepper around plants, include motion-detecting sprinklers.  Switching methods keeps wild visitors guessing.  Add chicken wire to protect tender plants in new gardens, sink fencing into the ground to prevent digging underneath, sit raised beds atop a wire-mesh floor beneath a frame also covered in wire, and cultivate differently—excessive mulch invites voles, herbicides deprive rabbits of the dandelions they prefer.  Learn about wildlife behaviors and adjust your own.  We have a responsibility to be good neighbors to the wildlife we displace with our homes and yards. (Thanks to the HSUS publication, All Animals, July/Aug. 2017 for these tips).

Love Letters for Mother Earth

We thought it would be nice to share this link with our Unity Center of Peace Community.

"In this series of tender meditations, Ten Love Letters to the Earth, Vietnamese Buddhist monk and Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh invites us to be truly present with the Earth, our Mother."
~ shared from Emmergence Online Magazine

READ HERE

Inside