Editor's Note: This is the sixth in our Faith in Action series of stories exploring faith-based and faith-inspired works, the people accomplishing them, and the connections with the community they are creating. The series is supported by the Fetzer Institute.

Kalamazoo comes alive during spring. If you walk or drive down Westnedge, Stadium, West Main, or Gull, you'll notice residents pulling weeds up in their gardens and planting seeds, painting parts of their houses, or enjoying the parks and shade of trees. 

Everywhere you look, people are caring for creation. In Kalamazoo, there is a faith-based organization dedicated to assisting the community with caretaking that includes raising awareness of human impacts on the earth.  Hope for Creation, a grassroots coalition working to encourage and support faith-based action on climate change, was born out of a desire to “galvanize the faith community” around climate change awareness, says the organization's coordinator, Joan Hawxhurst.

As part of its mission, Hope for Creation educates about sustainability and supports a climate action framework — or as they call it “Care for Creation” — in Kalamazoo and Southwest Michigan. The organization launched after over 150 participants joined the churches surrounding Bronson Park, along with the Kalamazoo College Chapel, Temple B’nai Israel, and Sisters of St. Joseph, in a Lenten series focused on climate change impacts in the U.S., and the Great Lakes Area specifically. Hope for Creation is the Southwest Michigan Chapter of Michigan Interfaith Power and Light. 


Michigan IPL describes its mission on its website: “We offer practical ways to put faith into action by promoting energy efficiency, renewable energy, and other sustainable practices that lead to a cleaner, healthier, and more just world." 


Hope for Creation members meet for an informational session at People’s Church on May 13, 2023 to talk about the environmental changes at the property, and the impacts they have made on the spaces energy use and carbon footprintAs a member of IPL, Hope for Creation interacts with the Kalamazoo community in a variety of ways. In their Green Team Initiative, Hope for Creation hosts quarterly meetings to raise creation care awareness. Topics include the promotion of recycling; environmental-friendly changes to buildings; and usage of church property for purposes such as gardens, native planting, natural areas, electric vehicle charging stations, building structural changes, and solar panels. 

In addition, to help spread the word about the sustainability aspects of a plant-based, locally-grown diet, HfC also provides easy-to-use plant-based recipes on its website and the organization’s TikTok. HfC also works toward a polystyrene-free world and lists nine commonsense actions one can take to reduce the product's usage. Polystyrene and other recycled containers have increasingly become a concern not just for the environment, but for safety regarding human consumption of food from take-out containers. 

Diversity and inclusion vital to a united response

Hope for Creation works hard to be as welcoming and inclusive to a variety of perspectives as possible, because the more diverse the defense of our planet's well-being is, the more effective it will be, says Hawxhurst... “The words 'climate change' can close doors,” she says, and this is the reason that the organization strives to change the discourse on climate change by focusing on it as a moral issue rather than a purely scientific one. 

There are thousands of different religions and hundreds of various denominations within Christianity alone, Hawxhurst explains. One common thread between many of these belief systems is the need to respect the earth. Hope for Creation originated from the coming together of many different denominations, faiths, and even people who choose to not practice any faith or spirituality. The people showed up to support the cause because they believe in caring for the earth — it was that simple, she says.

HfC Coordinator Joan Hawxhurst sets the agenda for the meeting. "We want to be as open and inclusive as possible, but we needed to have a foundation of respect,” says Hawxhurst about the origination of Hope for Creation’s Relational Covenant found on their website. The relational covenant is a list of the organization's ambitions, and guidelines of how to approach one another, and has some elements of a strategic plan. An example of one of the six guidelines includes the following: "We enter into our work together believing that the diversity of peoples is central to the thriving of healthy and sustainable communities locally and globally just as diversity within ecosystems is essential to their thriving."

Hawxhurst gives an example of why the Relational Covenant is so important. One of the most populous denominations of Christianity in the United States, the Evangelical community, “will push back when it comes to climate change, but they will have the conversation about stewardship and caring for creation.” HfC chooses to set aside many ideological differences to bolster its ability to provide ways for churches to decrease their carbon footprint, and work toward being as sustainable as possible. 


Why is creation care necessary? 

“What will I have to show my little siblings?” asks Tanai Dawson, a communications assistant at Hope for Creation. As one of few Black folks in the organization, Dawson shares a sentiment, one that Hawxhurst echoes, regarding the importance of inclusive climate action. Hope for Creation acknowledges that they are predominantly white at this point, but they have made a strong commitment to anti-racism, and to listening to non-white folk, says Hawxhurst. Both Hawxhurst and Dawson say that Hope for Creation is committed to practicing intersectional environmentalism, which incorporates climate justice with creation care.

Earlier this year, Hope for Creation hosted a conversation on the book "The Intersectional Environmentalist" by Leah Thomas. The talk was led by Claire McSwiney, a biology instructor at Kalamazoo Valley Community College, a former scientist at the Michigan State University Kellogg Biological Station, and a parishioner at St. Thomas More Catholic Parish Church. Both Dawson and Hawxhurst say the book has influenced the newly-organized priorities of Hope for Creation, which will become public later this year. 

Hope for Creation members meet for an informational session at People’s Church on May 13, 2023 to talk about the environmental changes at the property, and the impacts they have made on the spaces energy use and carbon footprintDawson, as the youngest Hope for Creation member, says due to her race and age, she has "a completely different perspective of everything" from other Hope for Creation members. "I am very touched at the effort they are putting into" to being inclusive, she says. “The group wants to listen, and get more voices involved,” says Dawson. She says Hope for Creation “always tries to make me feel that my voice is extremely important.”  

Hard work to be done, but hope and community make it easier

One of the very first speakers in the Hope for Creation Lenten series in 2014 was member Cybelle Shattuck, Associate Professor of Environment and Sustainability, and Comparative Religion at Western Michigan University. Part of the organization since its beginning. Shattuck admits she “accidentally helped get it [HFC] started.” 

Referring to creation care work, Shattuck says the organization looks to "the people who are doing it really well, to see what are best practices, and then tr(ies) to emulate and follow in their footsteps."

The sometimes daunting work of a creation caregiver never stops, and as Shattuck says regarding the current climate emergency, “We’ve got a bit of a mess on our hands.” Shattuck stresses the importance of learning how to effectively respond to the problems being caused by changes in climate, and how to break those problems down into systems and smaller digestible goals. 

Shattuck points out that one of the services Hope for Creation provides is moral support for the faith community, especially when making changes within their congregations. Regarding environmental impact, “once you know what is happening, you are morally complicit in that practice,” says Shattuck. “If you start looking at people of faith who pay close attention to what's going on with climate change, they very quickly realize we are out of sync with moral values taught by religious traditions.”

Once a faith community commits to sustainability, sometimes difficult decisions need to be made. For instance, Hawxhurst says, many churches serve coffee or tea and go through a ton of single-use cups (many of them styrofoam). A very simple change any church can make is to stop using single-use cups, she says.

Hope for Creation encourages the reduction and eventual elimination of all polystyrene usage. Hope for Creation aims to be an example, avoiding the use of single-use containers and offering plant-based food at its gatherings. In July, they will provide a vegan meal at the quarterly EPS foam recycling event held at Mayor’s Riverfront Park.

To be involved with Hope for Creation, however, organization members make clear, you don't have to be a member of a faith community. "If people want to take climate action," says Shattuck, "you don’t have to do it in a house of worship."

Kalamazoo acknowledges and acts on "climate emergency" 

Locally, the impact of climate change is already occurring. It has been over two weeks since lower Michigan has had measurable rainfall. Nearly one-half of lower Michigan has been rated "abnormally dry" for this time of year by the U.S. Drought Monitor.

“One of the things we’ve certainly seen, we have seen bigger rainstorms,” says Shattuck. In the Kalamazoo area, there was heavy flooding in 2008. Again in 2018, the high water mark was a foot taller in the latter decade than the first. In 2018, water levels were so high that a group of kayakers paddled by the Bronson's Children’s Hospital entrance off Vine Street.

A pair of kayakers take advantage of the high waters during the 2018 flood.Governmental officials and concerned citizens and organizations are taking note. The Kalamazoo City Commission voted unanimously to adopt the Kalamazoo Community Sustainability Plan at its Regular Business Meeting on Tuesday, June 21, 2022. According to this plan, the City of Kalamazoo will soon hire a full-time employee in their sustainability office. Kalamazoo County is also hiring a Climate Sustainability Coordinator. Hawxhurst says Hope for Creation is ready "to be a part of that work, to help voices be heard.” Hawxhurst points out that Kalamazoo neighborhoods also need to be welcomed into the process.  

“People are ready to be active,” said Hawxhurst, “There has never been a time that our name has been more on target. There is hope for our little corner of the world.”

To learn more about Hope for Creation and the Kalamazoo Sustainability Plan, please follow the links below: 
Hope for Creation
City of Kalamazoo Sustainability

Hope for Creation is supported through individual donations and grants from foundations and congregations, including the Congregation of St. Joseph, Kalamazoo Community Foundation, John E. Fetzer Individual Fund, and many local churches and faith institutions.