Moorestown Monthly Meeting’s Witness in the World Committee will host its second annual Loving Our Earth Fair along Main Street from 1 to 3 p.m. on Saturday, April 12.
In case of rain, the event will be held inside the Moorestown Meetinghouse.
“In the Quaker religion, sustainable stewardship of the Earth is a Quaker testimony,” explained Maria Esche, member of the Meeting and the Witness in the World Committee. “We believe that the well-being of the Earth is a fundamental, spiritual concern, so how we treat the Earth, and its creatures is a part of our relationship with God, and we need to be responsible stewards of our planet.”
The fair will be an opportunity for people to learn and explore eco-friendly ideas, including learning how to compost, finding out how to make your backyard a certified wildlife habitat, discovering easy alternatives to plastics, and learning how to eliminate food waste, as well as how STEM (Save the Environment of Moorestown) has been preserving the township’s open spaces since its formation.
There will also be kid-friendly environmental activities and friends from the Eco-Justice Collaborative of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, the Moorestown Garden Club, the Rancocas Nature Center, the Moorestown library and Food & Water Watch, a nonprofit that fights for sustainable food, clean water and a livable climate for everyone.
“When people think about climate and climate change, I think it can be very overwhelming, and sometimes we can be paralyzed by that,” Esche said. “We want to give people things that they can do – things like composting – and we want to provide a place where (people) can find some allies and friends (and) some organizations that are addressing these issues, that they can possibly work with or at least support and learn from.
“It’s important to know you’re not alone in trying to improve things,” she added. “There are lots of people doing good work, and we’ve invited many of them to come and share their information.”
The purpose of the Witness in the World Committee is to bring the values of the Moorestown Monthly Meeting out into the world. The committee engages with the community and its residents as it answers the call to “let our lives speak” in the broader world. Its outreach includes food drives, school-supply collections for the children of refugees living in South Jersey and toy drives.
“There are many, many organizations doing important work in making a real difference to improve the environment, and we can be a part of that work,” Esche noted of Moorestown Friends Meeting. “I want it (the Loving Our Earth Fair) to be a hopeful and optimistic and fun day for people to understand that (although) it’s a serious situation, it is far from a hopeless situation.
“There is a great deal we can do, and we just want to give people the friends and allies that they can join (with) and know that you’re not alone,” she continued. “There are a lot of people doing the good work, and they’re (fair attendees) all welcome to join.”
