Wow! Major things are going on inside Interfaith Partners for Chesapeake's newest One Water Partnership Hub in Lancaster Pennsylvania. As IPC continues to reach out to new corners of the Chesapeake Bay, we are thrilled to be sharing the progress of our newest hub. 

What is the One Water Partnership? The One Water Partnership creates regionally based collaboration of faith communities, environmental organizations and government agencies. These collaborations work together to restore the waterways in their own communities, which improves water quality in the Chesapeake Bay. So far the One Water Partnership has established hubs in Maryland’s Anne Arundel, Harford and Howard counties, the Lower Eastern Shore, the Baltimore region, and Pennsylvania’s Lancaster County. We are eager and thrilled to keep reaching new communities!

“We’ve achieved a tremendous amount through the One Water Partnership," says Matt Heim, Director of the One Water Partnership. “Multi-faith nature walks and prayer services, community stream clean ups, tree plantings, rain gardens, pollinator meadow plantings, and so much more! Every place we go is different, and we are thrilled to see what we can accomplish in Lancaster!”

One of our key tools for building our hubs is through Interfaith Partners for the Chesapeake’s Partner Congregations Pledge, which is striving to create a movement of faith communities working together to restore, honor, and protect the Chesapeake Bay. By signing the Pledge your congregation can be eligible for $500 in “seed money” to kick start your green team's journey!

So far 11 congregations in the Lancaster County area have signed the Pledge; Landisville Mennonite Church, Church of the Apostles UCC, Bright Side Baptist Church, UU Church of Lancaster, Community Mennonite Church of Lancaster, Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, East Chestnut Street Mennonite Church, Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd, Hope United Methodist Church, Grace Lutheran Church, and Highland Presbyterian Church. We are so excited to see this hub continue to grow so rapidly! You can check out all of our pledge signors here.

Recently, Holy Trinity Lutheran Church and Bright Side Baptist Church completed their first site assessments of their properties with the assistance of the Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay and the City of Lancaster, and generously funded by the National Fish & Wildlife Foundation. 

Site assessments are one of our greatest tools for determining the best practices to install, and to help create a road map for each individual green team. No two assessments are the same. We do not yet know what each of these congregations will be pursuing come the 2022 grant cycle, but we do know we are thrilled with the possibilities! Green roofs, energy efficient fixtures, rain barrels & cisterns, rain gardens, pollinator habitat, tree plantings, and maintenance workshops were all put onto the table between the two congregations. What they pursue will be entirely dependent on what their respective Green Teams want to pursue! 

We are so thrilled that our newest hub is generating so much momentum! We cannot wait to see what we can accomplish together!