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Fair Earth Day April 19, 2009
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| Kids checking the worms |
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| Fair Earth Revisited by Susan Hitchcock, contributor
It all started with a bunch of earth worms. On a fair April day recently, you could experience the worm effect for making organic compost, as well as many other green-friendly phenomena, at the Center for Transformation’s (CfT) Second Annual “Fair Earth Day”.
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The 2nd annual event, held in Sacred Heart Church’s parish cafeteria in the Waterfront South section of Camden, New Jersey, is proving to be one of a handful of important venues that the CfT is using to promote awareness in this South Camden church community and in the community at large. According to Mark Doorley, President of the Board of Trustees of the CfT, “Our success is measured in terms of the number of people who visit our fair, take some ideas home and begin to implement them in their life.” He, along with his active partner, Cathy Nevins, and a number of the Center’s membership and its supporters could be seen throughout the Fair explaining and demonstrating such earth-friendly processes as making your own compost in a huge tumbler, to saving on purchases of fair trade coffees, teas and organic olive oils. The CfT has been putting their mission into action by supplying fair traded coffees for after-mass hospitality for over a year now, and intends to start selling the product as a fund-raiser on a bi-weekly basis after its masses, and eventually over its website.
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Meanwhile at the Fair, sales were booming from one of the group’s largest venues, the tables run by Eve’s Garden and greenhouse, which operates on a large parcel on Emerald Street across from the parish church and school.Buyers could choose from colorful, fragrant flats of everything from heirloom tomatoes, peppers and herbs to marigolds and a garden variety of colorful flowers, all grown organically. The resident/ manager of this burgeoning urban green place, Andrea Ferich, had help from two neighborhood “farmer assistants/interns” who are among several of the local parish school students and other children who participate in Ferich’s agricultural efforts here in Waterfront South.
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| Andrea Ferich with offerings from Eve's Garden |
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| Susan Hitchcock selling organic bags |
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| If digging isn’t your choice, attendees at the Fair could learn about Community Supported Agrigiculture (CSA’s), and look on a large, colorfully marked map showing locations of the growing CSA network in the surrounding area. Besides the fair-trade coffee, supporters could purchase lovely wearable art, jewelry and other accessories made organically and priced fairly. Other vendors sold organic hemp and other reusable bags or were able to purchase compact fluorescent bulbs to replace the less earth-friendly incandescent type some homes still use. For hungry and thirsty fair-goers, there were brown bags full of organic goodies and organic hot beverages on hand, too.
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What started this green movement out of which the CfT emerged? The genesis of the CfT grew out of a dialogue among some 360 Sacred Heart parishioners attending a parish gathering in October 2005 focused on the future of the parish. Why have an Earth Day celebration in one of the most damaged parts of our nation’s poorest city? According to President of the Board Doorley, this Fair and other ongoing events and out-reaches, are “..(practical) ways to get ideas into the mind and hearts of Sacred Heart parishioners,” to be spread throughout not only other Roman Catholic, but Christian and non-Christian communities who care about providing “environmentally just and sustainable” solutions for our poorest neighborhoods who most need them. The CfT isn’t letting the dust settle for long, though. Doorley and his board and its supporters, under the auspices of the parish’s pastor, Father Michael Doyle, and the director of the Heart of Camden Housing Corporation’s Helene Pierson, are a working team cooperating for the completion of renovations and reconstruction of the long-empty Dominican Convent adjoining the parish rectory. When completed the facility will provide a retreat space for day-long, weekend or week-long experiential learning programs. According to Doorley, these retreats will afford “hands on experience for those who visit us to work and improve the land of Waterfront South, with our neighbors. Environmental justice is not just an intellectual exercise; we have to get our hands dirty; all will learn that caring for the earth is caring for our brothers and sisters.”
For further information on the Center for Transformation or to make a donation, contact Mark Doorley at info@camdencenterfortransformation.org or 856-429-1779, or visit their website: www.camdencenterfortransformation.org.
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