Green Grace
Green Grace is an award-winning faith-based coalition of volunteers who love, protect, and defend the Earth as God’s Holy Creation. We help faith communities beyond our own to engage in both large and small actions in caring for the earth and all its creatures. We offer guidance and support for a variety of creation care ministries, from which congregations may pick and choose in accordance with their strengths and interests. Green Grace is open and available to any and all faith traditions.
Grace Grounds
Grace Grounds volunteers faithfully support and maintain the arboretum, and have worked to shift the landscape from generic, non-native plantings to native species. Thanks to their work, the Grace grounds are now home to certified pollinator/butterfly gardens, a community food garden, a free vegetable garden, a Saturday farmers’ market, a permanent water source for wildlife, and a pavilion with a green roof for community use. The entire property is certified as a National Wildlife Federation Urban Wildlife Habitat, listed as an official project for the Hamilton County Master Gardeners program, is certified as a Monarch Waystation, and is ahome to butterfly gardens certified by the North American Butterfly Association (NABA).
Green Grace Arboretum
The Green Grace Arboretum was inspired by the mature tree canopy on the grounds of Grace Episcopal Church. Built in the late 1950s, this church stewards a significant amount (~3 acres) of green/ open space accessible to the public at all times. Grace is surrounded by a densely populated, racially and economically diverse, park- starved part of Chattanooga. The property lies along bus routes, pedestrian sidewalks. We are accdessible by neighborhood foot traffic as well as busy highways and high speed traffic corridors. This Tennessee Urban Forestry Council Certified Level 2 Arboretum is intended to be an oasis of green and calm in a loud, hot, busy neighborhood, providing wildlife habitat along with a respite within the natural world.
Green Buildings
Goals for Grace's Green Buildings efforts include lowering the church's energy and carbon footprint through a variety of actions, large and small, exemplifying how small choices add up. We hope that the building itself will provide examples for our members, as well as other faith communities and organizations, on how do the same in their own homes and businesses. This includes both building improvements and practices such as recycling and eliminating the use of plastic water bottles.
Local power company energy audit
Installing efficient light bulbs and fixtures
Improve recycling; hold ‘hard to recycle’ drives.
Check cleaning products
Weather stripping
Exploring options for solar installations
Weatherproofing.
Improve stormwater runoff, retaining more on site.
Eliminate, reduce single-use plastic.
Reduce light pollution.
Green Neighbors
The Goal of Grace's Green Neighbors effort is to serve as a resource to neighbors, the city, and to other faith communities on the care of creation by incorporating fellowship, hospitality, seminars, and celebrations.
Configure outdoor spaces as places for gathering community.
Free food gardens.
Connect church grounds/arboretum to public walkways.
Support farmers' markets
Quarterly or seasonal plant exchanges, homegrown food drives.
Education tables, clinics and swap/giveaway events (school supplies and uniforms, coat, and sock drives).
Educational workshops, classes, seminars for the public.
Provide affordable meeting space for community groups.
Foster collaborations with schools, neighborhood centers? Garden mentors/helpers?
Arboretum and other community projects, seminars, and celebrations.
Coordinate joint action/practices with other faith communities, within and outside of our denomination.
Coordinate, advertise collections for hard-to-recycle items: batteries, glasses, medicine, home chemicals, other.
Celebrate public Earth Day and Season of Creation observances.
Upcoming events.
Our calendar shows events of GreenGrace and others throughout the community that share similar goals. Community events can be shared with us in the Contact Us section below, we’d love to hear from you.
