The first thing you notice about St. Catherine Laboure in Wheaton, Md., is the church, with its distinctive architecture and stained-glass bell tower, set on the front corner of the parish’s nearly 10-acre property.
Turn into the driveway behind the 1950s-era building and you will find a sprawling campus built on a hill, with a half-dozen buildings surrounding large parking lots. While the slope of the grounds provides a good workout for walkers, it also brings environmental challenges due to water runoff.
During rainstorms, rainwater runs down the hill and across the parking lots, resulting in pooling and marshy spots near the church and rectory. That’s been a problem for many years, but it’s all changing thanks to partnerships that the pastor, Fr. Francisco Aguirre, has forged with local nonprofits.
Today, beautiful rain gardens with native plants capture, redirect and drain that water while rain barrels adjacent to two buildings collect water that can be used for plant maintenance.
Fr. Aguirre was interested in implementing Laudato Si’ principles and had been thinking about the world we are leaving for future generations, including his own nieces and nephews. It was around that time when he got an unexpected call from Ruby Stemmle, executive director of ecoLatinos, a Maryland-based organization that works to engage Latino communities in the Chesapeake Bay region through social and environmental justice and education.
“That planted the seed. I knew we had rainwater issues and so it seemed to be a good opportunity,” Aguirre said.
Stemmle’s organization has worked with several parishes and local faith communities, including St. Mary in Landover. That connection started a few years ago with a tree planting, with additional projects since. At the time, Washington Auxiliary Bishop Evelio Menjivar was the pastor.
“We understand the connection between the care for creation and spiritual values of our community,” Stemmle said. “We work with programs that connect with the community in a culturally sensitive way.”
She initially reached out to St. Catherine Laboure, which holds Masses in English and Spanish in its 1,300-seat church, because she knew the parish was home to a large Latino community.
The organization made a connection with the Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay. With a letter of support from Fr. Aguirre, the Alliance secured a $90,000 grant from the Chesapeake Bay Trust to install the rain gardens, conservation landscaping, native trees and rain barrels at St. Catherine.
ecoLatinos then secured a $30,000 grant from the Trust to support education and green team development at St. Catherine and other communities.
The parish recently confirmed a third grant for $185,000 to address the impervious surface parking lots.
Parishioner education is important
Education is a big part of the sustainability efforts at St. Catherine Laboure. Bilingual signs about the raingardens have been installed on site. Parishioners have been invited to get involved and to learn about native plants and care for creation. Some even have been given home rain barrels, taking the parish initiative home.
Latino owners of landscape companies also are benefitting from these partnerships. ecoLatinos is offering them training in environmentally sensitive landscaping, “enabling them to be cutting edge in their field of work,” Fr. Aguirre noted, while also helping the environment.
What is his advice for other parishes? Fr. Aguirre said, “If the desire is there the means will come,” noting that in Genesis, God tells us we are to care for creation and that is what they are trying to do each day.