Katharina’s Garden and Compost Program

by | Oct 29, 2019 | Uncategorized

Katharina’s Garden and Compost Program

Serving our community through growing and distributing healthy food to the hungry.
Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works
(James 2:14-18)

Katharina’s Garden and Compost Program is the most recent addition to the three outreach food programs based at Faith Lutheran Church. It was started two years ago through seed money and engagement from members of Faith and the community groups RISE, a local nonprofit engaged in food insecurity, as well as Homer J’s Senior Dog Sanctuary.
(Note: Food insecurity is the lack of access at times to food that is needed for a healthy life for all family members. Food insecure families may go hungry at the end of the month or adults may give up food so their kids can eat.)

The heart of Katharina’s Garden is head gardener and volunteer, Katie Colling. Katie is well connected with organizations and people who are interested in food insecurity issues. She has a group of committed volunteers who, along with volunteers from Faith, work on designated Saturday mornings to turn and sift compost, weed plants, and generally do what is needed to turn raw food scraps into compost, and raise seedlings into edible produce.

I talked with Katie Colling while she was picking squash bugs off plants.

Katie described the challenging process of creating a new garden by starting with building the soil. Healthy soil is critical since it can better withstand the challenges of bugs and disease as well as better tolerate the rocky soil and short growing season that are hallmarks of high desert gardening. So, building the Compost Program was a key early goal. Members from Faith have participated in the compost program by bringing buckets of egg shells, coffee grounds and veggie trimmings to add to the compost heap. Up to now, Katie has started plants as seeds, but plans to speed up the time to harvest next summer by planting seedlings instead. Creating a “denser” garden that produces increasing amounts of food over time as the soil becomes rich and friable is key to our goal of addressing the problem of hunger among our neighbors.

This summer the produce was distributed through the Monday Food Pantry, located at Faith Church and led by Eileen Way. Even now, in this early stage of its development, the garden is having a small but positive impact.

Want to Get Involved?

Donations
It takes a village to grow a garden and we are grateful for all those at Faith who have supported this effort so far. Faith Lutheran raises ongoing funds for the garden through bingo nights and donations collected at fellowship following the service. Your donations for the garden will support the expansion of the garden to yield more food for our community.

Volunteering
In addition, you can volunteer in the garden or with the children of the volunteers. Katie needs childcare for volunteers who want to help on the Saturday workdays, but have no one to watch their children. Anyone who would be willing to provide childcare at the church while moms and dads are working on the garden would be most welcome!

Compost
Continue to bring those buckets of raw material for making compost. Although planting and harvesting have ceased until spring, compost will continue to be processed all winter.

If you’re interested in bringing your food scraps to participate in the compost program or have any other questions about the garden, feel free to email Katy Colling at kmcolling@gmail.com.

Watch for updates about Katharina’s Garden in the Faith Newsletter, as well as on Facebook and Instagram.
Katharina’s Garden Facebook
Katharina’s Garden Instagram

Katie also posts information about the garden work schedule on Facebook.

Ministry Stories from Members of Faith

by | May 7, 2019 | Uncategorized

This has been one of the coldest, bleakest, and longest winters I have experienced. I am so happy and proud to be in this congregation. Let me share three of the great ministries that we did here at Faith this winter. We donated: coats and gloves to care for low-income kids, coats and blankets to care for local homeless individuals, and blankets to care for an ill, housebound Vietnam veteran.

Grace Warner Elementary School Project

Betty Thompson and Betty Brown organized a Christmas drive for kids at Grace Warner school. You may have seen the big bins around Christmas and participated in filling them with warm gloves and mittens and gently used coats. Grace Warner ranks in the upper poverty range for Nevada schools, with 65% of the kids who attend being eligible for free lunch. Poverty is, overall, related to scholastic achievement. For example, Grace Warner ranks in the lower 50% of Nevada schools in math proficiency. Kids who are behind in the lower grades have a difficult time catching up and fulfilling their potential in life. Providing nice-looking warm coats not only helps kids stay warm but helps them “fit in” with their peers. Further, when Betty Brown took the coats to Grace Warner at Christmas time, the kids saw that someone cared and “remembered” them. Research on kids who “make it” in the midst of difficult circumstances often point to having someone who cares in their lives. We don’t always know the impact of our actions on others, but some “seeds” are nurtured and grow.

Christmas Navajo Project and Jackets for the Homeless in Reno

A couple of years ago the outdoor clothing company, Patagonia, donated large boxes of jackets that had been purchased and then returned. Many of them needed mending, done by Faith members Faith Johnson, Eileen Way, Sigrun Coffman and Gloria and Craig Svare. That winter, many boxes of the jackets were donated to Reservation-living Navajo. This winter many more boxes were donated locally, to the Good Shepard Clothes closet on Record Street.

Veteran Blanket Project

Other women from Faith, pictured below, have started making blankets to give to needy veterans. In proportion to its population, Nevada has one of the highest numbers of homeless veterans across the U.S. I spoke with one woman in the group, Becky, who had been able to give a hand-tied blanket to a Vietnam veteran friend who, while not homeless, is housebound and terminally ill. He was not cold but was in need of comfort. Receiving a hand-made and personally-delivered blanket conveyed that he was loved, and not forgotten.

God’s Work, Our Hands

by | Feb 6, 2019 | Uncategorized

God’s work, our hands. This is a familiar refrain among Lutherans. How do we answer this call? At Faith Lutheran Church members live out their faith in a variety of ministries. In this blog, we will tell stories about these ministries.

We start with the ministry that I know best, a ministry to the Navajo who live on the Navajo Nation that was started by my parents in the 1970s, and has been continued by the next generation—Messick Ministries. Given the injustices and neglect of native people in the U.S., it is not hard to imagine the needs that exist on the Navajo Nation that would constitute God’s Work. These needs stem from the trauma from their historic past, and include high rates of poverty, substance abuse and suicide.

But these issues are not the topic of this current blog. Rather, we would like to introduce the Navajo in the way that they introduce themselves, using their clans. Many of us are familiar with the term clan but not aware of its implications. Clans provide social connections and a sense of community that many of us in mainstream American society strive for. It is one of many things that we could learn from Navajo people and culture.

The Clan system is incredibly complicated. There is a joke that you need to be born into the clan system to understand it! But, maybe we non-Navajo can get a taste of why it is so valuable.

Each Navajo individual belongs to four clans. Clans are organized systematically starting with mother’s clan (1), father’s clan (2), maternal mother’s clan (3) and then paternal father’s clan (4). Clans include many more people than nuclear families. For example, a cousin who shares the same 1st clan as one’s mother is also a brother. This has many implications for who is considered family.

A few years ago, I talked with a group of Navajo teens about the issues that affected them most. Substance abuse, family issues, and suicide were all discussed. All of these teens had personally considered suicide. Central to what sustained them were their clans. They told me that clans provide an instant connection and trust. Clan members—even clan members that you just met—are family and bring a sense of belonging and security.

In future blogs, we will talk about issues and needs on the Navajo Nation and ways that Messick Ministries encourages pastors and community leaders in their work. Depending on the need, Messick Ministries has supplied study Bibles, warm jackets and support for housing repair. But the clan system reminds us that doing God’s work is a partnership of working together for mutual understanding and learning.