St. Paul & the Redeemer Receives UTO Creation Care Grant

St. Paul & the Redeemer Episcopal Church, Chicago, IL
Posted Jul 25, 2022

The Church of St. Paul & the Redeemer has received a grant to improve its commitment to climate justice, sustainability, and making its building and grounds available as a resource to community groups from around the city. The grant project, entitled “Climate Justice on the South Side of Chicago,” will upgrade the church’s lighting system to use LED bulbs and facilitate education of the neighborhood about local incentives for energy efficiency.

St. Paul & the Redeemer received the grant from United Thank Offering (UTO), an organization that invites every individual to embrace and deepen a personal daily spiritual discipline of gratitude. The focus of the 2022 granting process was “Care of Creation: Turning love into action by caring for God’s creation to protect the most vulnerable who will bear the largest burden of pollution and climate change through justice, advocacy, environmental reparations, or the development of formational materials.”

“Caring for God’s creation is one of humanity’s first tasks according to Genesis, and we have done a pretty poor job of it so far. UTO’s 2022 grant recipients will play a great role in remedying that situation through the ministries they develop and disseminate to encourage greater participation in creation care,” said Sherri Dietrich, UTO Board President.

The Rev. Catherine Healy, rector of St. Paul & the Redeemer, agreed. “After we installed an electric vehicle charger in our parking lot in 2021, our community continued the conversation about how we could become better stewards of the resources God has so graciously given us. We’re expanding our commitment to creation care in every way we can. I’m so grateful to UTO for making it possible to improve energy efficiency in our church and our neighborhood.”