[Green] Community meal

[gbanz42 at suddenlink.net]

Stassa:

    Thanks for informing the Green Sanctuary group about your intentions regarding use of paper plates at the September Community Meal. Thanks also for your great work in the past on our Community Meal. The delicious meals that you have prepared and your careful attention to the management of supplies and other aspects of the organization of the meal are major reasons why our Community Meal has been such a success.

     Please know that the manner in which we prepare, serve, and clean up after our Community Meal was a major feature of the rather lengthy and cumbersome application which we submitted for Green Sanctuary status to the UUA a few years ago. Many in the Green Sanctuary group regard our use of plates and silverware as an important commitment to environmental concerns and a way to educate the larger community about our environmental commitment.

    We are not the only community meal in the area to use china plates and silverware, but among the few. This feature of our meal is one of the reasons our meal is distinctive in the region. 

     The collaboration between the Green Sanctuary Committee and the Community Meal Committee has been an exemplary case of inter-committee cooperation. When representatives of those two groups met  a few years ago, they agreed on ways to advance the objectives of the Green Sanctuary Committee while still offering a nutritious, attractive, and welcoming community meal. We shall discuss this kind of cooperation at our Committee Recharge event (September 24 (9-noon).

   If I may say so, I think you may be over-generalizing from the experience we had at the July Community Meal. At that meal there were several no shows among  the assigned workers (10, I think) who did not tell Shari Miller, the meal organizer, that they were not coming. I think that we now understand how to prevent that problem so that a recurrence is not likely.  For at least the past year, including the August Community Meal, team members have been able to complete their work by 7:30 p.m.

    It should also be noted that the use of china plates and adds a bit of "class" to our meal so that participants get the sense that  they are being treated with special care. 
    
     What is the purpose of your experiment with using paper plates? What is it you are trying to test and how will you assess it?

     Thanks again for all you do for our very successful Community Meal program.

---- Jay Phillips via Green <green at fuusm.org> wrote: 
> Just wanted to let you know that we are trying recyclable paper plates this
> Friday night. We will scrape the food off into our bucket and bag it
> separately for recycling. With the heat, tremendous use of soap and water
> and the shortage of people on our team, I would like to try it. Everything
> else we will wash.  Stassa
> 
> 

--
George Banziger
202 Lawton Road
Marietta, OH 45750-1111
740-434-5685
cell: 740-434-3354