St. Mary’s, Leake – an Eco Church
Improvements to Leake Church have been underway for the last year. These have been largely funded by a grant from Highways England, available because we are affected by being so close to the busy A19. Better heating and lighting have been installed, and other changes made to improve conditions for those worshipping and visiting the Church – and to enable us to be more energy efficient and to promote nature conservation and biodiversity, particularly in the Churchyard.
As a Church we are very conscious of our role in seeking to conserve and protect God’s earth, and to promote these objectives widely in our community. To that end, we are very pleased to have started our journey to become an “Eco Church”. This is a national initiative run by A Rocha, an organisation co-ordinating church improvements in several different dimensions: worship and teaching, management of buildings and land, community and global engagement, and lifestyle of our participants. We have challenged ourselves to improve our actions and our Church against the criteria set by this initiative, and we are delighted to announce that our efforts have won for us a Bronze Award! We are only the second Church in Mowbray Deanery to have achieved this.
But our journey is not finished. There are many more issues to tackle, and we are aiming to move on to secure the next level – a Silver Award. On this journey, we have already made two small, but very positive, steps:
We’ve signed up to become a Fairtrade Church!
The Fairtrade organisation works with farming co-operatives, businesses and governments to make trade fairer. Fairtrade’s vision is for a world in which trade is based on fairness so that producers earn secure and sustainable livelihoods. We have now been accepted as a Fairtrade Church because we have undertaken to use Fairtrade products (and there are many of these) wherever possible and share information about Fairtrade products with the wider congregation. All the coffee and tea served in our Church (including our Café Church in Knayton and Borrowby Village Halls) will henceforward be Fairtrade. In addition we are integrating the initiative into our worship, and will promote it wherever possible by information, displays and events.
We have Twinned our Toilet!
We are very fortunate at Leake that we have a toilet! Indeed, we are the only one of the seven churches in the Hillside Benefice to have one. It is a simple and logical extension for us to think about helping to secure a toilet somewhere in a developing country, where the problems (and need for a toilet) are of course far more serious than in our own parish.
Toilet Twinning is run by Tearfund, which funds global water, sanitation and hygiene programmes. Our donation to this initiative has provided for the average cost of providing a toilet.
We have chosen one of the most troubled countries in the world to support in this way. Our “twin” is to be provided in the village of Kongor, in South Sudan.
