Fighting Food Deserts in Our Own Backyard

Food insecurity affects many Americans and especially those in Whatcom County. Although food insecurity occurs for a number of reasons, one cause is a lack of access to food, particularly fresh fruits and vegetables, despite having the means to buy it. This creates a Food Desert.
This is not ok, anywhere. Especially in our backyard!

“According to the USDA, a food desert occurs when more than 33% of the population in urban spaces is further than one mile from a supermarket. In a rural setting, 33% of people must be more than 10 miles from a supermarket. By this standard, over 18 million people lived in food deserts in 2019.”*

At Echoes we find this unacceptable.

When we discovered not only a food desert and monopoly to not open another grocery store in north Bellingham, we were grateful to learn about the work of the Birchwood Food Desert Fighters and what they have been doing to address the food desert created in 2016.

Together we are helping to fill 3 food boxes in the Birchwood Neighborhood on the 4th Tuesday of the month! We collect donations for filling boxes at our Dinner Church on the 4th Monday, this month 10/28 @ 6:30pm @ 2116 Walnut Street.

Bring your shelf stable foods or money to help purchase foods to fill the boxes! We so appreciate your help to share food and share love with our neighbors!

Here’s a great article about the work of BFFD!

*https://www.morningagclips.com/hungry-in-america-exploring-the-food-desert-crisis/

Pride Blessings 2024

We are filled with JOY after the 2024 Pride in Bellingham Parade & Festival on July 7th!

So much diversity was on display and we are grateful as a faith community that was founded at Bellingham Pride in 2013 to be a part of it (11 years woah)! Thank you to everyone who helped us pass out pocket hearts, stickers, bracelets, buttons and….POPSICLES!
It reached over 80 degrees in downtown and a cool treat was just what many folx needed as they concluded their day at Pride. Sharing in the love sometimes means refreshment AND sugar.

We shared in worship before the parade and are offering some of the words we shared with one another before we shared the love downtown!

Pride Blessing
In this PRIDE season, let us celebrate the grace of the Divine, who liberates us from limitations, the boundless love, mercy, and justice of the Creator, who crafted a kaleidoscope of identities, and the wisdom of the Holy One, who urges us to embrace this magnificent diversity.
May these blessings be with you all. And also with you.

Inclusive Lord’s Prayer
Our Sovereign, Divine Mystery,
unbound by gender, name, or form,
hallowed be your all-encompassing love.
May your will for liberation and wholeness be done,
On this earth and where every being has begun.
Give us courage as we give to others,
to face the challenges that silence our truths.
Forgive us for the times we've hidden our light,
as we forgive those who bring oppression's night.
Lead us not to conformity but fierce authenticity's embrace
and deliver us from the fear of speaking our truth.
For yours is the love, the passion, and glorious diverse design,
now and forever.
Amen.

Sending Blessing:

May the divine spark, ever-shifting and boundless like queer love, ignite within you. May this essence propel you forward, a radiant disruption in a world clinging to binaries. Go forth, a testament to God's love that transcends categories, and be that love for all creation. And we say amen.

Boxes Filled with Love

Whether sharing the table at Dinner Church or filling the food boxes of our neighbors, at Echoes we believe that Food is Love. With your help and donations we can fill boxes that serve a food desert in the Birchwood neighborhood. Donations are collected on the 4th Tuesday of the month for the Birchwood Food Desert Fighters

Together we can help fill a need for our neighbors

Monetary donations/gifts are welcome to purchase foods that are still needed to round out each box (often ready to serve/eat meals).


FOOD DONATIONS COLLECTED 6/24 @ DINNER CHURCH

Summer Food Box Needs
granola bars  |  canned / shelf stable milk  |  nuts  | canned/pouch meat/fish  |  canned beans  |  canned fruit  |  soups/stews  |  jerky  |  fruits / veggies stable in cold  |  oats  |  sauces  |  spices  |  tea / juice  |  parmesan cheese  |  syrup  |  sugar  |  cereal  |  tortillas  | sliced bread  |  rice |  salt / pepper

2024 Trashion Show Eco-Chic Echoes Outfit!

Bellingham Blooms

30 Hours, 600 Hymn Sheets, 13 People & Infinite Glue Sticks Later...
Echoes created a Rainbow Trashion Show Success!

While we didn't win a prize, this 2024 Trashion Show collaboration was all about community, and we were overjoyed to interact with so many people who were seeing these re/upcycled hymns. May this dress be a reminder that every expression of authenticity and boldness and love, is DIVINE!

Our "Bellingham Blooms" submission was a tribute to our founding at Bellingham Pride and our commitment to seeing the beauty in making old things new.

Thank you so much to everyone who contributed to this fabulous fundraiser to support Habitat for Humanity Whatcom County and their efforts to create more affordable housing! This experience of creative re-use was a fantastic reminder to use what we have and see the treasures all around us!

We are delighted to be featured in the Cascadia Daily Article that showcases the many wonderful outfits!
Photo by Cocoa Laney from said article above

Creating a Trashion Show Look: A Labor of Love & Sustainability

“Fashion also should be seen as an instrument of action, not simply as an object, in order for it to have the meaning it should have in culture.”

-Robert Covolo from Fashion Theology

At May's 2024 Creative Church we explored outward expression as we prepared an outfit collaboratively for the "Trashion Show" fundraiser which supports affordable housing in Whatcom County with Habitat for Humanity!

Together we disassembled old hymnals & song books and began their process of transformation into flowers for our dress! Everything with a past has potential usefulness, if we curate collaboratively its place in the future.

The dress will be composed of recycled materials, cardboard, tin, (clean) dog food bags, wire and as many rainbow paper flowers we can fit. It was and continues to be a labor of love, and we are grateful to everyone who has helped. We cannot wait to unveil it on the runway at the Trashion show on June 7th!

https://www.hfhwhatcom.org/news-and-events/trashion-show

So why should a church make an outfit of recycled or repurposed materials?

Together we explored that clothing can express our values, our sensibility, who we are in relation to Bellingham and this place, as much as Bellingham has influenced who we are and what we do as a community!

As it says in 1 Timothy 6:7-8:

"For we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world. But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content."

May we continue to use what we have in our care for creation and its creatures!

Feeding our Neighbors

At Echoes we believe that Food is Love. Help us share the love & feed our neighbors in north Bellingham when the need for foods of all kinds to make ends meet only continues to increase. At our monthly Dinner Church we will collect food donations for the food boxes we fill on the 4th Tuesday of the month for the Birchwood Food Desert Fighters.

Together we can share food and fill bellies of our neighbors in need.

Monetary donations are also welcome to purchase foods that are still needed to round out each box (often ready to serve/eat meals).

FOOD DONATIONS COLLECTED 4/29 @ DINNER CHURCH

Spring Food Box Needs
granola bars  |  canned / shelf stable milk  |  nuts  | canned/pouch meat/fish  |  canned beans  |  canned fruit  |  soups/stews  |  jerky  |  fruits / veggies stable in cold  |  oats  |  sauces  |  spices  |  tea / juice  |  parmesan cheese  |  syrup  |  sugar  |  cereal  |  tortillas  | sliced bread  |  rice |  salt / pepper

Easter Walk 2024

We gathered on a beautiful Sunday afternoon to walk along Whatcom Creek for our annual Easter Walk! We shared stories of both the history of this region, while weaving in the stories of death, life and resurrection of the ancient past. We listened to the story of Salmon Woman and visited her totem and honored the promises made to her since time immemorial, which includes us. We promise to respect the salmon and not overfish or take them for granted. Life is Sacred. Water is Life. And protecting both is part of our calling.

We celebrated the salmon that flow along our cities waterways and cheered them on their journey as we remember our deep interconnectedness.

The Miracle
By Leslie Wharton

They say back in the day
You could walk across the river
On the backs of Salmon.
Like Jesus.

They say Jesus walked on water.
Maybe Jesus walked on the backs 
Of Salmon.
Maybe Salmon are the miracle.

Sharing Food & Filling Bellies

Help us feed our neighbors in north Bellingham when the need for shelf stable food is still great. At our monthly Dinner Church we will collect food donations for the food boxes we fill on the 4th Tuesday of the month for the Birchwood Food Desert Fighters.

Together we can share food and fill bellies of our neighbors in need.
Monetary donations are also welcome to purchase foods that are still needed to round out each box (often ready to serve/eat meals).

FOOD DONATIONS COLLECTED 2/26 @ DINNER CHURCH

Winter Food Box Needs
granola bars  |  canned / shelf stable milk  |  nuts  | canned/pouch meat/fish  |  canned beans  |  canned fruit  |  soups/stews  |  jerky  |  fruits / veggies stable in cold  |  oats  |  sauces  |  spices  |  tea / juice  |  parmesan cheese  |  syrup  |  sugar  |  cereal  |  tortillas  | sliced bread  |  rice |  salt / pepper

Ash Wednesday 2024

“Let the remember-ing
that we are dust
and to dust we will return
be a reckoning with our inseparable lives and deaths
be an apology for all we have chosen instead of each other
be a grounding in the promise
that we come from holy soil.
Holy dirt.
Holy dust.
Created good.”
-M. Jade Kaiser

As Lent began, at Echoes we found ways to get our spirits and our bodies ready for the season.

On Monday at Creative Church we burned palms and the things we wanted to release as we prepared to create art with ashes.

Taking time to create art with the ancient material of the earth reminds us of the beautiful things that God can and continues to make with the dust and with us, imperfect earthen vessels.

On Ash Wednesday we brought the ashes down to Waypoint Park Beach for a sunset service to mark our faces with dust as we remember where we come from and where we will return. It was chilly, but warmth was found together, in community.

This 40 Day season is about remembering we were created good and must remind ourselves of this even in our process of transformation. We gave thanks to the Earth that reminds us of this constantly, and daily at the rising & setting of the sun.

There is an old English word: Dustsceawung: (dust+iinspection) which is contemplation of the fact that dust used to be other things – the walls of a city, the chief of the guards, a book, a great tree: dust is always the ultimate destination.

May such contemplation loosen

the grip of our worldly desires.

Blessings to each of you as the winter makes way for spring.