St Mary’s receives Silver Eco Church Award
St Mary’s Reepham has received a Silver Eco Church Award. To achieve the award, bird boxes, a small pond and bee hotels were introduced into the churchyard and swift boxes were put into the church tower.
The Silver Eco Church Award certificate being presented to Rachel Richmond (right), St Mary’s Eco Church lead, by the rector, Revd Helen Rengert, at the Café Church service, which was celebrating the life of St Francis of Assisi. Photo: Lynne Gower
In addition, winter services are being held in St Michael’s to reduce the church’s carbon footprint; this is calculated annually, with a view to reducing it still further.
Members of the church community are also encouraged to use one of the carbon footprint tools to help them see how they can reduce their own personal carbon footprint.
Earth Hour, marking the need to reduce energy consumption, was celebrated in March, and a community litter pick was organised in the summer.
The church also achieved Fairtrade status in September, with all tea, coffee, sugar and communion wine bought being fairly traded, and £300 was raised at a coffee morning to help the Fairtrade Foundation to pay small farming co-operatives a fair trade premium.
This allows those in the co-operatives to decide how to help their communities, be it by providing clean drinking water, schools for their children, health facilities or improved tools for their farms.
Eco Church is an award scheme run by A Rocha UK, a Christian environmental charity “working for the protection and restoration of the natural world”’
The scheme aims to support and inspire churches of all denominations to take practical action to care for the Earth.
St Mary’s Reepham was awarded an Eco Church Bronze Award in 2022 for its worship, buildings, land, community engagement and individual lifestyle.
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