Oak Grove Presbyterian Church will once again host a mobile shredding event (10 am to Noon) in the parking lot on Saturday, April 20, with ShredRight. Help the environment by bringing your documents to be shredded onsite.
Suggested donation is $10 per grocery bag and $20 per box. Funds raised will go toward defraying costs for the Intergenerational Civil Rights Pilgrimage (June 19–22).
Donations can also be made on Oak Grove’s website at: https://onrealm.org/oakgrv/-/form/give/shredevent
Oak Grove’s Earth Day AFF on Sunday April 24th 9:15-10:15am
The walking tour starts at church at 9:15 a.m. It will also be streamed on Facebook Live if you prefer watch the tour online.
The AFF for Oak Grove’s Earth Day celebration on Sunday April 24th will be the Green Committee’s walking tour of different sites around the church where we are moving to clean, non-polluting renewable energy and clean water. The tour will show our LED lights, solar panels, wind energy, electric vehicle charging, rain gardens, air source heat pumps and all the insulation and sealing of our building to cut energy use and switch to carbon-free sources. We will also show how we are educating the next generation.
Find out what we are doing to protect God’s Creation and pass on a livable Earth to our kids and grandkids. Find out how you can do many of these things in your homes and help our church become net zero in electricity, heat/cooling, and transportation.
Thank you to the Green Committee for giving an informative Adult Faith Formation (AFF) program on Sunday, January 23, 2022. Their non-partisan presentation, Caucusing for Climate on Tuesday, February 1, focused on the upcoming party caucuses. The parties are making it easier this year to take part in the caucus process including the DFL’s contactless caucus that you can do at home.
See the list below for links to the Green Committee’s presentation and key links for finding your caucus, becoming a delegate to the endorsing conventions, offering resolutions, and more. For further information, contact John Crampton, Chair-Green Committee, 612-396-6010 jcrampt48@gmail.com
Link to the Green Committee’s Caucus for Climate presentation PDF
Minnesota Secretary of State- Caucus Finder (for all parties)
DFL (Democratic) Caucus Finder
GOP (Republican Party) Caucus Info
Grassroots Legalize Cannabis Party
DFL (Democratic) Non-Attendee Form PDF (to volunteer to be delegate to nominating convention)
DFL (Democratic) Resolutions Form PDF
Oak Grove Presbyterian Church in Bloomington is hosting our 3rd Annual Electric Vehicle (EV) Expo on Saturday, October 9, 2021, 11:00 a.m.-3:00 p.m.
EV Expo Slideshow (PDF)
Over 20 EVs will be on display, and their owners will share their driving experiences. The American Lung Association will host dealer test drives of some of the latest EV models.
Talks by experts will include:
Electric bikes, e-scooters, e-mowers, and e-snowblowers will be on display, along with an EV transit van.
The events and test drives follow Covid protocols and are free and open to the general public. The event will be outdoors at Oak Grove Presbyterian Church, 2200 W. Old Shakopee Rd, Bloomington 55431 952-888-4621
For more information, contact John Crampton jcrampt48@gmail.com 612-396-6010, Pdon Pinkham pdonco.an.sons@gmail.com 608-397-3081, or the church office 952-888-4621.
Oak Grove’s Green Committee is hosting three Adult Faith Formation (AFF) sessions in April and May 2021. Also, on April 8, the Green Committee hosted a Conversation with District 50 Representatives and Senator.
Thursday, April 8, 6:00-7:30 p.m., Faith Communities Talk With Legislators. You are invited to question-and-answer state legislative forum for faith communities in District 50 on Thursday night April 8th from 6:00-7:30 pm via Zoom. The forum will feature Senator Melissa Wiklund, Rep. Andrew Carlson (50B) and Rep. Michael Howard (50A). The forum is being organized by Isaiah https://isaiahmn.org/ and will include members of faith communities in District 50 including Oak Grove Presbyterian, Christ the King Lutheran, Dar Al-Farooq Muslim Center, and St. Richards Catholic Church and other groups. The forum will focus on pending bills for: Revenue-making everyone pay their fair share, Democracy– expanding/protecting voting rights, Paid Family Leave– caring for our families, Climate Justice– plans that meet the scale and urgency of the climate crisis. For more info, contact John Crampton 612-396-6010 jcrampt48@gmail.com To register: https://secure.everyaction.com/G_DuKjcYOU62gxI7vz_2tQ2
Sunday, April 11, 9:30 a.m., “Climate Reality and Our Future” a sobering overview of the impact on climate change on different earth systems and projections of species survival under different scenarios of global warming. Developed by Former Vice President Al Gore and Alliance for Climate Protection and The Climate Project. Presented by Bill Middlecamp, a commissioned Earthkeeper in the United Methodist Church and a well-known climate activist in our area. See also En-ROADS Brings Climate Science to the Masses.
Sunday April 18, 9:30 a.m., “Policy Solutions to Climate Change.” Participants are able to simulate possible large scale solutions to dramatic climate change through the use of the online En-ROADS policy simulation model developed by MIT. See what possible solutions are and discuss the implications. https://www.planet.veolia.com/en/climate-change-climate-simulator-En-ROADS Presented by Bill Middlecamp, a commissioned Earthkeeper in the United Methodist Church and a well-known climate activist in our area. See also En-ROADS Brings Climate Science to the Masses.
Sunday, May 2, 9:30 a.m., Socially-Just Climate Solutions
Cooperative Energy Futures equips members across the state to build socially-just climate solutions that grow community wealth and power. CEF has financed and developed 6.9MW (~$16M) of low-income-accessible community solar arrays that are cooperatively-owned-and-operated across urban, suburban, and rural Minnesota—including: Shiloh Temple in North Minneapolis, Pax Christi Church in Eden Prairie, and Edina Public Works Building. Find out how Oak Grove and our members can potentially get involved as host site(s), investors, subscribers and supporters. https://www.cooperativeenergyfutures.com/ Presented by: Timothy Den Herder, General Manager of CEF
Link to recording of the January 17 Zoom presentation – password !1r1!3B0
The Adult Faith Formation program, “Bringing Renewable Energy and Empowerment to Low Income Communities to End Energy Poverty,” will be presented on Sunday, January 17, 2021 at 9:30 a.m. by the Green Committee and RREAL, Rural Renewable Energy Alliance of Northern MN.
RREAL is a leader in helping Native American Nations construct community solar gardens, solar for Habitat for Humanity houses, and solar assistance for low income people through community action programs. RREAL also develops community-based solar projects in Uganda and Liberia. RREAL is a leader in installing solar on schools and has developed renewable energy curricula for grades K-8 which is being used in schools throughout Minnesota. https://www.rreal.org/
Our goal is to begin a discussion of how Oak Grove can marry our church’s efforts and expertise in social justice, mission, supportive housing, education, and environmental stewardship to serve the wider community of low income people in our communities. For more information, contact John Crampton 612-396-6010
Nine Mile Creek Watershed District is offering training on how to maintain a rain garden by watering, weeding and selection of replacement plants (if necessary). Oak Grove will be hosting the training in our rain garden on the outside of the Education Wing under the solar panels on Wednesday Night Sept. 9th 6:30 to 8:30 pm. To sign up, please contact John Crampton 612-396-6010 jcrampt48@gmail.com
We believe that electric bills are faith statements of how much we value the continued livability of God’s Creation for all living species. In the past month, Oak Grove’s rooftop solar produced 2.90 MWh which represented 62% of our electrical usage. In addition, our community solar garden, St. Cloud Solar on the outskirts of St. Cloud, produced 6.85 MWh which is 147% more than our electrical consumption. We sold all our excess production to Xcel in the form either rebates or bill credits. Solar Production Graph
In terms of climate impact, in total we produced 14.4 MWh of clean energy (solar and wind). That is 14.4 million watt hours of no-emissions electricity. We avoided putting 10.2 metric tons of CO2 into our atmosphere. It is the same as if we grew 13.3 acres of forest for 1 year to sequester carbon. Good job Oak Grove! Now let’s all do this in our own personal energy consumption by using WindSource or Wellspring or other means to go 100% carbon free for our electricity.
Rain Garden Update by John Crampton, Oak Grove Green Committee
The rain garden in front of Oak Grove is planted and starting to grow. Don’t just drive by the church and wave. Get off your duff and out of your car, get off your bike or scooter and check it out! It’s huge. It’s going to take millions of gallons of dirty storm water runoff off of Old Shakopee Rd and clean it, infiltrate it into the ground water, rather than letting it pollute Nine Mile Creek, Minnesota River, and the Mississippi River, including reducing the major role that these rivers play in producing the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico.
The project is being paid for 100% by the Nine Mile Creek Watershed District (WSD) under the leadership of Erica Sniegowski, Program and Project Manager. The rain garden will be maintained by Nine Mile Creek WSD for the first 2 years and then Oak Grove takes over. The excavation work was done by SunRun Construction Company out of Rochester. The planting and maintenance are being provided by Hoffman and McNamara Landscapers from Hastings. Design and engineering are provided by Barr Engineering. Five other churches in the Nine Mile Creek Watershed are also constructing rain gardens, including St. Luke’s Lutheran and St. Edward’s Catholic Church in Bloomington. Look for a future bike trip to each of the five churches.
May 27 UPDATE: photos showing the complete inlet and outlet plumbing.
May 20: See below for photos of putting in the inlet and outlet for Oak Grove’s new Rain Garden. Sunrun is putting in the inlet on Old Shakopee on May 20, with some very skillful work with bucket and level. They will put in outlet on May 21. Planting is scheduled for next week.
