Creation Care

Here at Walter Scott, we are committed to caring for God’s Creation. This is expansive work that is not just about switching to greener ways of doing the things we already do, but thinking about our relationship with the environment, our spirituality, and the responsibilities we have to know and be known in the place we are. This page is a repository of the ways we are living into this commitment at Walter Scott through the actions and initiatives of our Green Team, Caretaker, and many others.

“Going Green”

Planting vegetable gardens to share with the community

Composting at Walter Scott

Switching to fair trade coffee and tea

Conducting an energy audit to be more responsible and aware of our energy usage as well as how we can better conserve and use our resources

Switching from liquid detergent in large plastic packaging to detergent sheets in packaging that we compost on-site

Switching to brown (unbleached) paper products which are composted on-site when feasible

Creating ecology and environmentally focused activities for CCIW Summer Camp Usage

Partnering with Faith-in-Place to convert grass under power-lines to native prairie

Sending recycling back with visitors to camp while services are unavailable in our area

Installing a 10kW solar array to power our central group of buildings and reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. Read more at CampWalterScott.org/Solar/

Acquiring goats to remove invasive underbrush without the usage of ecologically hazardous herbicides

Offering a distributable resource on knowing our place within the larger seasons, cycles, and actual place of the natural world.

Creating signage around native plants and their importance in combination with Disciples Women on our Frog Pond Trail! Follow the link to see our Frog Pond Trail Native Species Signage CampWalterScott.org/frog-pond-trail-signs/

Creating our Plastics & Faith video series for Earth Month 2024

Switching to cloth hand towels instead of paper towels in sleeping areas

Being a part of the Perennial Atlas Citizen Science Project through the Land Institute

Participating in “Low Mow May” (Only mowing around our buildings as necessary and mowing less overall to support biodiversity instead of chemical fueled wasted lawns)

Switching to homemade cloth napkins

Creating dead-hedge fencing

What Can I Do?

Plant Native Plants instead of grass or non-natives in your community’s, company’s, church’s green spaces in addition to your own yard
- UCC/DOC Joint Webinar
- Native Plant Finder
Utilize Foraged Species in the Kitchen. Here are a couple of examples
Consider where your food waste goes. Learn how to compost if you have the space or join a program like Mill to have your food waste go full circle back into food again.

Native Foraging Calendar

You should never eat plants that you personally are unable to identify. However, if your identification skills are up to the task (or you want to walk around with one of our staff), the following calendar will help you know what is able to be foraged within the woods of Walter Scott and at what time of the year! Remember, only ever take a small amount of anything you forage, it is a gift from Creation in whom we live in relationship. We must always leave enough for the other parts of Creation and the plant community to flourish as well.

This calendar is a work in progress. Let us know what else you would like to see included!