Green Jobs for the Homeless; People of Faith as Stewards

NAME: Mary Walker

LOCATION: Fairbanks, AK

ORGANIZATION: Alaska Interfaith Power and Light

Many faith communities have been slow to pay heed to environmental calls to action. Fortunately, traditions are changing. Religions around the world are reawakening to their responsibility to fulfill the green rule of caring for creation (earth) within their theologies and are calling upon adherents to serve as stewards of creation.

As the project coordinator of Alaska Interfaith Power & Light (IPL), Mary Walker’s role is to support all faith communities in serving as environmental stewards. Tackling this challenge requires a creative, “non-conservation choir” approach to encouraging environmental action. One way to do that is by bridging the commonly practiced golden rule of caring for one another (particularly for those in need) with the freshly renewed green rule through Green Jobs for the Homeless.

Mary’s TogetherGreen Fellowship project is to create a collaborative green collar job program between Alaska IPL and the Christian-based Fairbanks Rescue Mission (FRM) homeless shelter. The result will be the establishment of Fairbanks’ one and only recycling center. Mission residents will operate the Recycling Center, providing both a desirable community service and a very important sense of accomplishment to those who are seeking a hand-up rather than a handout.

The FRM Recycling Center will instill an environmental ethic by providing an innovative conservation program, addressing the moral obligation to act. And once this stewardship ethic is instilled, the door will open to encouraging faith and other communities to take specific conservation actions such as protecting habitat, species, and water, and reducing energy consumption.