Eco-Stewards to Visit Portland, OR

Greetings to all! We are excited to announce specific plans for our June 2013 Eco-Stewards Program in Portland, Oregon: Connectional Urban Living as Creative Response. We are eager to recruit a new crop of Eco-Stewards (Ages 20-30), so please help us spread the word by sharing the link to this blogpost with any young adults who care deeply about faith and environmental stewardship. You can find more information about the program below:

Connectional Urban Living as Creative Response

Portland, Oregon: June 1-8, 2013

This place-based learning program for young adults (ages ~20-30) will consider how people of faith in the Portland area are responding in creative ways to environmental challenges such as climate change (Oregon coal export controversy), food inequality and urban sprawl. We will spend the week exploring the city by foot, bike and public transport as we visit farmer’s markets, ecumenical partnerships, co-housing communities, food cooperatives and farms. Along the way, we’ll meet with community organizers, city planners, church leaders and environmental activists to discuss how they are laying connectional roots to build a sustainable urban community. During the week, we will also take time to reflect on our individual eco-faith journeys while staying at Menucha Retreat & Conference Center and hiking and recreating in the Columbia River Gorge and foothills of Mt. Hood in the Cascades. For more information, contact Rev. Rob Mark: revrobmark@gmail.com

Application Deadline: Applications still being accepted this week, so apply ASAP. (Rolling admission).

Eco-Stewards 2013 Application

Program Cost: $400* (Participants must pay their own travel expenses to/from Portland; *Financial assistance available)

 Want to host an Eco-Steward intern in Summer 2013? Click here to download a copy of our Intern Request Form. Send questions to revrobmark@gmail.com

Happy Earth Day!

Happy Earth Day from The Eco-Stewards Program! With Earth Day falling on Earth Sunday, it’s a perfect day to be thinking about the intersection of faith and environmental stewardship.  It’s also a great day to promote our five summer internships at PCUSA camps and organic farms around the country– please spread the word to anyone who might be interested in spending a summer harvesting organic crops, designing composting and recycling programs and educating youth about the connections between faith and food. Click here for more info about the internships.

We also have one more opening for a young adult to join our June 2-9 Climate Change & Christian Activism program in Boston and Vermont. Learn more about our June program here.

And finally, check out this article about how Presbyterians– including our own Rebecca Barnes-Davies, Associate for Environmental Ministries for the Presbyterian Church, USA and Diane Waddell, moderator of Presbyterians for Earth Care–  are addressing climate change from carbon neutral policies to solar-powered churches. Our West Virginia Eco-Stewards should recognize Robin Blakeman of the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition, who is also quoted in the article. We have Eco-Stewards West Virginia Program Leader Heather Lukacs to thank for pointing us to this very comprehensive article published by the Yale Forum on Climate Change & the Media.  Read the article here.

More Summer Internships!

The Eco-Stewards Program is happy to announce four wonderful summer internship opportunities working at organic gardens and farms around the country.

Love gardening? Camp Albermarle in Bogue Sound, North Carolina is looking to hire a paid intern who will maintain their new camp garden, start a composting and vermicomposting program, and create environmental education programming. Read more here.

Love farming? Camp Holmes in Holmes, New York is looking for an intern to help with the camp’s new sustainable farm project. The paid intern will harvest produce, care for farm animals, tend composting and vermicomposting, plan environmental education activities and more. Learn more here.

Love Montana? Greenwood Farm in Hardin, Montana near Crow Indian Reservation is offering an unpaid summer internship for someone with a passion for sustainable, organic farming in a Christian community. The intern will help with a variety of farm projects from fence building to weed control to free-range poultry to harvesting and stacking hay and much more. This position also provides opportunities for community service at a homeless day center, community garden and a new community health center. Read more here.

Love Nebraska? Calvin Crest Camp in Fremont, Nebraska wants to hire a paid summer intern to create activities for campers to get involved with the new camp garden. The goal is to get campers thinking about how the food they eat connects to their work in the garden. The intern will also build a sustainable composting program for the camp and encourage community involvement in the garden.  Learn more here.

Love New Jersey? Johnsonburg Presbyterian Center in rural northwest New Jersey is looking for a intern to tend the camp garden and create composting and recycling systems. Read more here.

Can’t commit to an internship? Then join our week-long Eco-Stewards Program in June and meet other young adults who are passionate about connecting faith and environmental stewardship in practical ways. Our theme this year is Climate Change & Christian Activism, June 2-9 program in Boston & Vermont. Click here for more info.

Montana 2011 Eco-Stewards Program

The Bighorn River, as viewed from Greenwood Farm on the Crow Reservation

Join us June 2-9, 2011 as we explore the connections between faith and environmental stewardship along the banks of the Bighorn River in southeastern Montana. We will camp in tents and tepees at Greenwood Farm, a 40-acre organic farm on the Crow Reservation, just outside of Hardin, MT.

Through discussions with environmental experts, local farmers, doctors and tribal leaders, we will consider how communities can achieve sustainability and reconciliation through better agriculture, health care and green building practices. Our exploration of these issues will include lectures, community gatherings, field excursions, hands-on project work, creative worship, and sharing of personal passions and vocational discernment. While paddling the Bighorn and hiking in the Sand Rocks, participants will have time to absorb the region’s powerful landscape while reflecting on their own eco-life journeys.

The Eco-Stewards Program, formerly known as the Presbyterian Conservation Corps,  is open to young adults (ages 20-30) who are looking for education and training in environmental stewardship from a faith perspective.

Participants may choose to follow up the week-long program with a paid summer internship at one of several sites, including: Greenwood Farm in Montana; one of several Presbyterian churches in West Virginia; or one of several Presbyterian Church (USA) camps around the country. These Eco-Stewards Interns will put their skills into action through a variety of projects such as planting organic gardens, building green structures, designing and implementing “greening” plans for camps, or creating an eco-stewardship curriculum for campers.

Among others, the program’s leadership will include: Rev. Rob Mark of Harvard University’s Memorial Church and First Presbyterian Church of Waltham, Massachusetts; Dr. David Mark, MD of Crow/Northern Cheyenne IHS Hospital and Bighorn Valley Health Center; and Becky W. Evans, a freelance environmental journalist and communication professor at Boston University and Lasell College.

To apply, email Rev. Rob Mark at robfirstpres@gmail.com