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Churches buy eco-friendly Palm Sunday leaves
Two local churches buying from company that uses sustainable harvesting methods.
Monday, March 30, 2009
The business side of Palm Sunday is getting an eco-friendly makeover these days.
For this year's observance, which falls on April 5, two churches in Dayton and Centerville are ordering their palms through a program called Eco-Palms, which uses sustainable harvesting methods and channels more of the profits to Central American agricultural workers. And the Texas plantation that supplies the palms for many local Roman Catholic churches makes a selling point of its commitment to sustainability and fair pay.
Environmental consciousness is "an important piece of (the business) for us," said Karen Klepacz, owner of Dayton Church Supply, which supplies palm strips for about 150,000 area churchgoers, mostly in Catholic parishes. "I respect the churches that want to stay eco-friendly."
The store at 136 E. Third St. gets its palms from Palm Gardens Inc. of Alamo, Texas, which promotes itself as being "committed to policies of respecting human labor and natural resources."
Company officials said they were too busy to be interviewed last week, but a letter to customers says, "fair trade practices have become increasingly important when purchasing palm leaves for Palm Sunday services." The company said it provides good pay to more than 200 seasonal workers, harvests only once a year from mature trees and doesn't sell "the over-harvested tropical Chamaedorea palm."
The University of Minnesota's Eco-Palms program does use Chamaedorea palms, but they're harvested in a manner that doesn't kill the plants, and the distribution system leaves more of the profits in the harvesting communities, program officials say.
The Rev. Sherry Gale, pastor of Dayton's Grace United Methodist Church, said it just makes sense for Christians to support environmental and social justice issues.
"We just want to be a part of making life a little more just and fair for everyone and take care of the Earth at the same time," she said. "It seems like a simple choice to make."
Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2264
or tbeyerlein@DaytonDailyNews.com.
