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Parish and Local Community Groups: Organizing for Justice
As citizens, each of us needs to participate in this debate over how our nation best protects our ecological heritage, limits pollution, allocates environmental costs, and plans for the future. —Renewing the Earth, United States Catholic Bishops (1992)
Across the country, Catholic parishes are joining other local organizations and churches to form grassroots community organizing that address a wide range of neighborhood issues, including environmental justice. Often with funding from the Campaign for Human Development (CCHD), these organizations provide parish leaders an opportunity to identify their own concerns, develop leadership skills, and use the power of numbers to shape local and state decision-making.
Mothers of East L.A.
Women from Resurrection Parish
in East Los Angeles have joined with other
mothers in the community to form Mothers
of East L.A. Together, the women have successfully
opposed a hazardous waste incinerator proposed
for a site near their community. They also
defeated a proposal by Chem Clear, a subsidiary
of Union Pacific Corporation, to build a
plant near a local high school. The company
planned to clean toxic chemicals out of paint
and other substances and then transport the
toxins through the neighborhood to be buried
nearby. An important part of the mothers’ strategy
was to participate in prayer vigils as a
means of connecting their organizing tactics
(testifying at hearings and meeting with
company officials) with their faith.
Sheboygan County Interfaith
Organization
The Sheboygan County Interfaith
Organization is a multi-issue, church-based
community organization in Sheboygan County,
Wisc. Member churches have worked together
on a variety of issues, including an effort
to get a local chemical plant to acknowledge
its corporate responsibility to the community
and the plant’s workers.
Lower Anthracite Project
The Lower Anthracite Project
(LAP) is a regional coalition of churches,
unions, business groups, and community organizations
that work together for economic justice and
environmental preservation in the southern
hard-coal fields of Northeastern Pennsylvania.
The group believes it is possible to protect
both jobs and the environment. They stopped
a major plant closing while maintaining their
commitment to preserve the environment.
Pollution Prevention
Public Education Project
Our Lady Gate of Heaven Parish
Council (Archdiocese of Chicago) educated
the community about the health problems of
toxic emissions and publicized the results
of its Good Neighbor Dialogue with Acme Steel
Company. The dialogue aimed to motivate plant
owners and managers to reduce toxic emissions.
Clinton River Cleanup
The Department of Christian
Service of the Archdiocese of Detroit used
a planning grant to initiate an effort to
organize 40 parishes along the Clinton River
Watershed to deal with the river pollution
problems associated with urban sprawl.
Lower Naugatuck Valley
Brownfields Education Project
The Archdiocese of Hartford
partnered with the Naugatuck Valley Project
to train 30 leaders in 10 parishes in an
area with 20 brownfield sites. The goal was
to organize parishes to participate in developing
reuse plans that directly benefited the effected
communities through an increased tax base,
job creation and remediation of environmental
hazards.
Empowerment for Environmental
Equity
This St. Francis Prayer Center
in the Diocese of Lansing project seeks to
empower volunteers through a training program
to become advocates for their neighbors and
themselves in a low-income housing development
to counter efforts to place toxic dumps in
their neighborhood and to promote efforts
to protect their soil, air and water for
a better quality of life for their families.
Renew the Earth Seminars
The Environmental Committee
of the Diocesan Peace and Justice Commission
(Diocese of Rockville Centre) conducted six-week
seminars in four parishes about the link
between the environment, faith and social
justice. The project helped establish a core
group in each parish for follow up organizing.
The project served as a model for expanding
this type of education/action process within
the diocese.
Water Quality Education & Monitoring
Program
This project educated the parishioners
of St. Mary’s (Diocese of Trenton)
and the community about the pollution of
the local drinking water supply and encouraged
parishioners to monitor and alter their behavior
to prevent water pollution.
Catholic Community of
Lynchburg College Lead Partnership
The Catholic Community of Lynchburg
College (Diocese of Richmond) coordinated
a volunteer/donation program on an interfaith
basis with the goal of increasing awareness
of the problem of lead-poisoning of children
in the Lynchburg area and to raise funds
to support ongoing efforts by Lynchburg community-based
organizations to educate and support families
in inner-city neighborhoods whose children
are at greatest risk of becoming lead-poisoned.