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Nashville A Rocha

Nashville A Rocha is a community seeking to integrate faith, creation care and hospitality.

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Nashville A Rocha

Nashville A Rocha

Nashville A Rocha

Nashville A Rocha

Nashville A Rocha

Nashville A Rocha is a community seeking to integrate faith, creation care and hospitality.

Nashville A Rocha is a community seeking to integrate faith, creation care and hospitality.

Nashville A Rocha is a community seeking to integrate faith, creation care and hospitality.

Nashville A Rocha is a community seeking to integrate faith, creation care and hospitality.

Nashville A Rocha
Nashville A Rocha
Nashville A Rocha
Nashville A Rocha
1 Campaign |
Nashville, United States
$6,025 USD 67 backers
60% of $10,000 Flexible Goal Flexible Goal

“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.

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. 


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

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. 

Listen to one of the songs from our first retreat: The Night Sky - Featuring Sara Groves and Andy Gullahorn

(The song link above opens best in the Safari browser.)

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.


Learning about the watershed. Photo-Courtney Howard

_________________________________________________________________

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

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Choose your Perk

From Smallest Seed

$15 USD
The limited edition pre-release CD of our first A Rocha Songwriters Retreat with 8 acoustic recordings featuring songwriters Sandra McCracken, Jill Phillips, Waterdeep, Sara Groves, Buddy Greene, Julie Lee, Sarah Dark, Flo Paris, Chelsey Scott, Kellie Haddock, Susan Enan, Jordan Hamlin, Kenny Meeks and Andy Gullahorn. *Official album release date (on iTunes and Amazon MP3) August 12, 2014.
Estimated Shipping
July 2014
48 out of 500 of claimed

Backyard Bundle

$50 USD
3 CDs and a set of 10 ready-to-mail postcards featuring the A Rocha cover artwork by D.L. Taylor.
Estimated Shipping
July 2014
14 out of 100 of claimed

Garden Gloves

$100 USD
3 CDs, 10 postcards, cloth garden gloves, and a nature journal.
Estimated Shipping
July 2014
1 out of 50 of claimed

Family Dinner

$500 USD
Join us for a homemade pizza dinner and conversation in East Nashville hosted by Sandra McCracken and some of the local A Rocha team. (Travel not included. Dates TBD.)
1 claimed

A Rocha Special Event

$3,500 USD
House Show or Community Event - Host an evening of music, poetry and conversation at your church, living room or community center. We would provide at least 2 artists from Nashville and a member of the local A Rocha team for a special night of music and conversation. (Travel and lodging not included. Dates TBD.)
1 out of 3 of claimed

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