Cindy Novak, senior pastoral associate for Life and Learning for Church of St. Timothy in Blaine, reports on the success of the church’s project funded by One Planet Fund grant:
We received $1500 to help us put in a water bottle refill station/water fountain in our parish center, specifically in the area where our children and youth meet for faith formation and where many adult groups meet for meetings. Due to some complications, we needed to hire a professional plumber to adjust and update some of the plumbing which slightly delayed our installation and made it a bit more costly, but in the end, it was successfully installed and has been in use ever since the beginning of August 2024.
This project has helped reduce the need for single-use plastic water bottles. We encourage people coming to our parish center to bring their own refillable water bottles and they can easily access fresh, cold water from this refill station. When someone does not have their own bottle, they can use our compostable paper products and still get cold water from this station. It’s wonderful not to have plastic bottles overflowing our recycling containers or (worse) getting thrown in the trash!
Thank you again for funding this project and helping our parish in our efforts to get closer to zero waste!
Grants will be dispersed three times annually. Applications due: November 1, February 1, July 1.
Maximum grant: $1,500.
To Apply contact:
Elizabeth Rydeen
Franciscan Sisters of Little Falls
Phone: 320-632-0624 Email: erydeen@fslf.org
Caption: A new water bottle refill station encourages parishioners to use reusable water bottles.
