“Prayer begins with the senses, in the body, in geography, in
botany.”
--Eugene Peterson
Join us in supporting the efforts of creation care, hospitality, and songwriting through the work of Nashville A Rocha, a faith-based conservation organization.
Thirty years ago, A Rocha founders,
Peter and Miranda Harris moved their family to the Alvor Estuary in Portugal to
help start a Christian field study center.
A Rocha (Portuguese for “the rock”) is now in 19 countries around the
world, including the US. Blending the
work of science, faith and hospitality, A Rocha projects are characteristically
rooted in community – working to improve relationships between people and their
particular place.
In Nashville, our A Rocha story
includes music. In a town of
songwriters, we wondered what might happen if we gathered musicians and
scientists and talked together about the created world around us. The first A Rocha songwriting retreat resulted
in an album, From Smallest Seed, a
collaborative effort to cultivate community and creation care.
Our story also includes kids, and
neighbors, and yards, and a vision for what could happen if we started thinking
more deliberately about stewarding our place; starting small, thinking big.
So join us in celebrating the
release of our first album, From Smallest Seed,* and help us raise support for the
work of Nashville A Rocha as we take the next step forward.
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Learning to Bio Blitz, taking notes on our own backyard. photo - Flo Paris Oakes
1. Backyard Biodiversity Project
$4,000 for plants, tools, educational resources and promotion to help transform urban and suburban spaces into more biodiverse wildlife habitats
“Diversity of species is a form of safety in numbers…the
more species there are, the less likely it is that any one of them will get out
of hand and – just as true – the less likely that any one of them will suffer
unduly.” Sara Stein, Noah’s Garden: Restoring
the Ecology of Our Own Backyards
We care about the environment
because we believe God made it, loves it, and asks us to take care of it.
Environmental conservation work can be intimidating, so we’re
starting with work that can be done in our own backyards and learning what it
takes for ordinary people to become conservationists. Inspired by the
work of Douglas Tallamy, Sara Stein, Wendell Berry and others, we seek to
better know and love our particular place, and to create and restore
habitat for insects, birds and mammals right where we live.
Currently in its pilot
phase, our Backyard Biodiversity group consists of five busy
moms (with 12 kids among us). We've been reading and
meeting together to develop the concept, and connecting to local groups
already doing good work. Since native plants are essential to biodiversity,
our first step has been to help each other install rain gardens full of native
perennial plants in our yards, with the support of Cumberland River
Compact (a local watershed protection agency).
We'd like to empower and inspire others
to join us in this work. Some of the barriers to creating habitat include
lack of knowledge, skills and materials (rain garden installation
costs run from $300 to $1,700 or more). Funding will help us address
these needs and share this developing program with others who want to
learn about biodiversity and restore it to their own yards.
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Young 'Great Horned' owls in the backyard. photo - Andy Gullahorn
"It is increasingly clear that much of our wildlife will not be able to survive unless food, shelter and nest sites can be found in suburban habitats." Douglas Tallamy, Bringing Nature Home
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Sharing songs at the A Rocha Songwriter Retreat. photo - Trevor Henderson
2. Songwriter
Retreats
$4900 for hospitality, guest speakers, and CD manufacturing costs
We are shaped by what we sing.
Songs have the power to influence us and our response to the world around
us. Nashville A Rocha has organized and
hosted two local songwriting retreats, spearheaded by singer-songwriter
Sandra McCracken, to explore the intersection of songwriting and creation
care. The result is one finished album:
From Smallest Seed. With more music in the works, Nashville A Rocha
would love to continue to inspire our Nashville community through
songwriting retreats offered at no cost to the artist.
(The song link above opens best in the Safari browser.)
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Getting our feet wet in the creek. photo-Courtney Howard
3. Creation Care Camp
$1,100 for camp curriculum and 'Nature Build'
We are preparing for our 3rd
year of Creation Care Camp where we use A Rocha USA's curriculum to engage
kids in hands-on outdoor learning with the help of local wildlife agencies,
musicians and pastors. The camp quickly fills to capacity every year (30
kids). Help us expand our ability to share this special program with more
kids in 2015. Also, as an extension of the Backyard Biodiversity project,
we're piloting a "Nature Build" program this summer,
where 15 kids will spend four summer mornings learning about
biodiversity and making a piece of habitat to take home (like
a birdhouse, ladybug house or bug hotel), in the hope that we can
share this curriculum more broadly in the future.
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Learning about the watershed. Photo-Courtney Howard
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More detailed funding breakdown:
Backyard Biodiversity: $4,000
-Native plants, tools or other supplies (like mulch and drainage materials), with a goal of installing native plant gardens at 30 homes by the end of 2015, granting up to $100 per garden (according to need). $3,000
-Developing educational materials for workshops and promotional materials, and yard signs. $500
-Developing data tracking resources, Bio Blitz materials, to document changes to biodiversity indexes $500
Songwriter Retreats: $4,900
-Food, hospitality and retreat venue ($500 per retreat) $1000
-Travel and honorarium to bring in guest speakers/scientists $1,000
-CD duplication $1,700
-Artwork Design $400
-Sheet Music $300
-Website development $500
Creation Care Camp: $1,100
- Supplies and scholarships to expand Creation Care Camp in 2015 $500
- Creation Care Camp curriculum adaptation for Tennessee ecology $300
- Supplies and materials for 2014 summer Nature Build program $300
Nashville A Rocha is a non-profit. Your donation is tax deductible.
For more information, contact Nashville Project Director, Jenna Henderson: jenna.henderson@arocha.org