LVC alumni and previous Outreach Coordinator, Betsy Cannon, reflects on her experience participating in the People’s Climate March with Earth Ministry and Interfaith Power & Light. She joined Executive Director LeeAnne Beres and current Outreach Coordinator Jessica Zimmerle to march for climate action with 400,000 others in New York City on September 21, 2014.
Alumni Stand with Faith Communities at the People’s Climate March
Lutheran Volunteer Corps Leader Letter
September 25, 2014
Betsy Cannon
I served as a Seattle LVC member in 20112012. My placement, Earth Ministry and Washington Interfaith Power & Light, has provided a moral voice on environmental justice for more than 20 years. As Earth Ministry’s Outreach Coordinator, I led their Greening Congregations Program, working with churches who were fully committed to creation care. They started community gardens and donated their produce to the local soup kitchen. They celebrated St. Francis by holding a blessing of the animals. They met with their legislators and advocated for clean energy policy. The determination and impact of these faith communities inspired me.
At the end of my year of service, I packed my bags and headed cross country to New York, NY. When searching for a congregation in the city, finding a church committed to social and environmental justice topped my list. St. Lydia’s, an emergent church where people build community and discuss theology around the dinner table, felt like coming home in part because of the values and ELCA roots that it shares with LVC.
Given my Earth Ministry background, when I first heard of the People’s Climate March happening in NYC on September 21st, I knew I had to participate. The march had a section devoted entirely to people of faith. Muslims, Buddhists, Methodists, Unitarians, Catholics, Lutherans, Jews and others gathered together to say that we have sinned in our care of creation and to demand action to reverse climate change. I was thrilled to have St. Lydia’s marching in the frontlines for climate justice.
I was even more excited when two weeks before the march, I received an email saying that Earth Ministry was sending representatives all the way from Seattle. It was wonderful to reconnect with Executive Director, LeeAnne Beres, and meet current LVC’r, Jessica Zimmerle, but most of all it was a thrill to march together and with 400,000 others demanding action against climate change.
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