St George's Church, Barcelona, held a Caring for Creation Fair on Saturday 19th October in the church building and its garden.  Here Denise Kent (LEO at St George's) explains the background of the Fair and describes how successful it was:

'We had been hoping to have some kind of event since April 2021, when a group of 4 members of St George’s first formed our Caring for Creation group. We are now 12 people. 

The event had a two-fold purpose: on the one hand, to raise awareness on how we can all participate in REDUCING, REUSING and RECYCLING in a fun but responsible way.  We combined it with the Harvest service – the sharing of God’s creation. On the other hand, we wanted to raise funds for our church’s various ministries.

The ‘stalls’ were set up in the garden and people could visit each one and purchase anything. The Forest Nation part of our RECREATE STALL was very popular, as the person explaining was giving away free tree planting kits. The idea was to give the tree a name of your choice through the website which was then reciprocated in Tanzania by a duplicate tree being planted there. Search here for more information: www.forestnation.com There were also several homegrown, sustainable plants available for donation.

On the REPURPOSE STALL, a lady had taken ‘old clothing’ and converted it into beautiful new items to purchase if they wished. Another lady showed how a sleeveless T-shirt could be changed simply into a tote bag - no sewing needed.

There weren’t as many people as we would have liked, and very few children on this occasion. 74 people came. We had an Apple Bobbing area and table tennis set up outside. Inside, there was painting and making cork key rings. We were also selling some REUSED items: a tuna tin T-light candle holder, ready-made cork key rings and glass yoghurt pots containing potpourri.
 
 

Inside we were also selling good condition second-hand clothing, many books and household items that people had donated.

There were also homemade preserves for sale, made mainly by our Tuesday Topics ladies, and refreshments to keep people going, made and donated by our MULOA group.

We hope to repeat something similar in Spring with maybe a wider focus.

Our chaplain, Revd John Chapman said: "We celebrate God’s world in all sorts of ways, whether through the spiritual battle of prayer, Christian mission throughout the world and in our own country of Spain and in our recognition that this physical world and all that is in it is God’s, therefore we have a responsibility to be wise stewards of all the resources in His world.

The commitment of those who put this event together was enormous and the vibrancy of the day flowed from that. I am deeply grateful to all."

It was an enjoyable experience where we were able to showcase our Caring for Creation ideas and suggestions.'

Thank you to St George's for sending us this story to share.  If you have an event or story that you think would be great to share with the rest of the diocese, then please get in touch with Ruth or Susi in the Communications team:

communications@europe.anglican.org