When God created the world, He put humans in charge. This means that we are all stewards to the world and that we have a responsibility to take care of our planet, the environment, the animals and the other people who are in the world.
To be good stewards we must live a way of life that respects God’s creation, including the other humans that he put on earth. As Pope Francis explains, it means protecting all creation, the beauty of the created world, as the Book of Genesis tells us and as Saint Francis of Assisi showed us.
We are all Stewards of Creation, but here at St. Joseph’s, our Stewards make it their mission to ensure that our school is an ‘Eco School’. We use our meetings to discuss and implement ways in which we can help our planet, in school and in our community.
Eco Schools green Flag Award
In the last year, they have planted over 80 trees; made and installed bird feeders, bug hotels and bird boxes in the school grounds; introduced clothing and battery recycling; and developed an ‘eco-code’ which embraces our Catholic ethos and character virtues.
Their hard work has been rewarded with a ⭐️Distinction⭐️ and the prestigious, Eco Schools Green Flag Award. We are proud of the commitment they have shown to caring for God’s creation.
School Connect Project
We are really excited that our school has agreed to begin fundraising and recycling in the “School Connect Project”.
The School Connect Project is a north east based company who specialise in the recycling of unwanted and unloved clothing, bags, shoes and bric-a-brac for collection and redistribution.
This project is so important because young adults and the youth of today really seem to have taken on board the effect waste has on climate change. We are hoping that by starting with recycling, we begin to ask the right questions about climate change and the ways in which we can look after the planet for future generations.
Young people are not only the victims of climate change caused by generations gone-by, they are valuable contributors to climate action. They realise that it is their futures that will be affected.
Children are seeing first-hand the visible and disturbing impacts of plastic in our rivers, seas and oceans and how marine wildlife is suffering through the ingestion, suffocation and entanglement of hundreds of marine species. Animals such as seabirds, whales, fishes and turtles, mistake plastic waste for prey, and most die of starvation as their stomachs are filled with plastic debris.
This project will teach the effect waste has on the environment and how we can all play our part in effecting change. They will also be helping the school to raise funds for their own specific causes.
We want the children to enjoy this experience and for it to be fun and we will be talking to the school about how we can encourage the children to be involved and how we can engage with them more directly by way of competitions and prizes.
Battery Recycling
Did you know that each year in the UK we throw away around 600 million batteries?
Laid end-to-end these batteries would reach from the UK to Australia and back again. That is a lot of batteries!
Our Stewards of Creation have decided to do something to help, and we now have a recycling box outside the school office. If you have old batteries to recycle, please bring them to the office, pop them in the box and we will recycle them for you!