Need funding to get your Creation Care project off the ground? This workshop will be a chance to learn more about grant opportunities in the City of Gaithersburg.  Invite others from your congregation to attend and receive proposal planning support. 

For more details and to sign up for the workshop Click HERE.

Great Letter to the Editor from Rabbi Rain Zohav of Interfaith Families Project and Jews for the Earth. Thou Shall Not Steal Trees from the Next Generation!

Join Interfaith Partners for the Chesapeake's Leadership Circle to learn, share, and support each other in our faithful journey to ensure clean water for all. Read more...

We are excited to announce that the One Water Partnership™ program has been awarded a 3-year grant by the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation! Through this program, we will mobilize 100 congregations, of which 36 will commit to deep engagement and high-impact stormwater management or restoration projects. Click HERE to read more. 

The faith community has spoken! Nine (9) bishops, conference leaders and other denominational leaders signed this letter stating they demand a ban on fracking. Our faith reminds us that we are a Creation that grows and flourishes together as one interconnected web of life. No human, plant, or animal is less rightfully a part of that web of life than another. And yet the practice of fracking leaves a few burdened with environmental pollution and health risks – an imbalance in this web of life. Click HERE to read their letter.

Save Some "GREEN"

Baltimore congregations - have you applied for your stormwater utility fee reduction? If not, please visit our Blue Water Congregations page for instructions how to get this done.

Prince George's County congregations - you need to sign up for the Alternative Compliance Program by March 15th to put your fees on hold for the following year. Click here for more information!

Great Videos

-Faith Communities in Maryland Reduce their Polluted Runoff

-Penn State University has assembled several great videos that explain some of the most complicated urban runoff problems, and what different community groups are doing about them.

Congregations Needed to Plant Trees in Montgomery & Prince George's Counties Got Grass? Plant FREE trees instead. Through Trees for Sacred Places you can have a BIG impact on your environment, host a GREAT community building and beautifying event on any faith owned property in Montgomery & Prince George's counties and throughout Maryland that can accommodate 60+ trees. If there isn't enough space available you can team up with another congregation. Don't own your property or have no free space? We can put a team of your volunteers to work. Check out our full webpage HERE.

Trees for Sacred Places - -Trees are God’s cure-all. See how your congregation can get involved with this wonderful project. Even if your grounds are not big enough to plant trees we can find a place for your volunteers to help. Your congregation can  get FREE trees, tools, planting plans, and educational/spiritual workshops. IPC is seeking congregations throughout Maryland and particularly in Montgomery and Prince Georges Counties. Click HERE to read our media release with program highlights. Contact Bonnie at bonnie@interfaithchesapeake.org. See more on our program page HERE.

Blue Water Congregations is still available for communities of faith in Baltimore City and County. But the spots are filling fast. Help your congregation save money on their stormwater utility fees while healing God’s creation. Through this program several congregations have secured thousands of dollars in grant funding to fulfill their stewardship missions. Contact Bonnie at bonnie@interfaithchesapeake.org See more on our program page HERE. 

First I would like to acknowledge the congregation of Payne Memorial AME, Jessup, MD for planting the seed into the Water Shed Steward Academy.  By planting the seed, this seed would help produce the fruits of labor to help Clear Water ministry achieve the goals to preserve God’s most precious creation in which we all must inhabit. . . Read the rest of Kirvin's heartfelt & inspiring message HERE. 

A light in the darkness.

Mother Theresa will be canonized next September and clearly she was a light in the darkness. Malala Yousafzai is a light in the darkness in her unending fight for the educational rights of girls. Here in Baltimore, Destiny Watford, the high schooler fighting the permit for a trash incinerator in her neighborhood, is a light in the darkness.

Ever since San Bernadino, the hateful rhetoric in our country has escalated. It can seem very dark these days. Regardless of your religion and whether you are celebrating Christmas this week or not, you crave a light in this darkness. 

But let me tell you...there is much light already piercing through this darkness.

• 10,901 trees have been planted by Maryland congregations
• 17 Anne Arundel County congregations are installing stormwater improvement projects with the help of Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay and the Watershed Stewards Academy . . . Read MORE 2015 IPC Highlights