North Shore Pollinator Corridor

The North Shore Pollinator Corridor Initiative Executive Summary
The North Shore Pollinator Corridor is a justice-rooted, theologically-grounded initiative ofTrinity North Shore Anglican Church to cultivate beloved community by restoring ecological and human flourishing across diverse neighborhoods. This project weaves together native pollinator garden installations, community education, and socio-economic equity in a 20-mile corridor north of Boston, where parishioners and neighbors are invited to receive, co-create, and steward habitat that heals both land and relationship.

Drawing on our church’s founding vision to connect people to God, community, and creation, this initiative engages practical ecological action as a form of spiritual formation. We understand the Eucharist as a call to holistic justice — to feed the hungry, tend the land, and restore dignity to all creation. By gifting native plant gardens and offering pastoral accompaniment across socio-economic boundaries — from mobile homes to multi-million-dollar homes — we invite people into a shared story of belonging, beauty, and renewal.

Project Description
The North Shore Pollinator Corridor is a spiritually rooted initiative that integrates environmental stewardship, social justice, and Christian formation. At its heart, the project is about restoration — of ecosystems, of neighborly connection, and of a theological imagination that embraces the flourishing of all creation.

This initiative seeks to create a contiguous corridor of native pollinator gardens spanning at least 20 miles across Massachusetts' North Shore. These gardens will be installed in a wide diversity of sites — from private homes to affordable housing developments, churchyards to community green spaces — and will serve as visible signs of care, hope, and shared purpose.

Three primary objectives guide the project:
A. Ecological Restoration through Pollinator Garden Installation
Building on our existing "Tithe Your Turf" program, we will gift native pollinator garden plans and plants to households and communities across socio-economic lines. These gardens improve biodiversity, support native species, and mitigate environmental degradation. Every installation is also an opportunity for hands-on education in ecology and theology.

Our project responds to an urgent ecological crisis: the rapid decline of pollinator populations. Bees, butterflies, moths, beetles, and other pollinators are essential to the health of ecosystems and the production of many of the foods we eat. Yet habitat loss, pesticide use, climate change, and urban sprawl have led to drastic declines in their numbers. Massachusetts has seen sharp reductions in native bee populations, and monarch butterflies — once common in our region — are now a species of concern.

Restoring native pollinator habitats is a concrete and achievable way to mitigate this crisis. Pollinator gardens not only support ecological health, but also reconnect people to the land, offering spaces of beauty, reflection, and renewal. These gardens are spiritual as well as ecological interventions — signs of hope in a time of unraveling.

B. Spiritual Formation through Eco-Theological Praxis
Participants will be invited into formation experiences — both informal (conversations while planting) and formal (small groups, events, and workshops) — that explore howcare for creation reflects God’s self-giving love. We draw on a theology of eucharistic justice: we feast at Christ’s table, and are sent to feed the world, human and non-human alike.

While the North Shore includes many affluent communities, it is also home to deep inequities. Pockets of poverty, food insecurity, and social marginalization exist in close proximity to wealthier neighborhoods, often without meaningful connection between them. Low-income residents and communities of color disproportionately experience environmental degradation, lack of access to green space, and barriers to fresh and culturally familiar food.

We believe ecological justice must go hand-in-hand with economic and social justice.That means not only addressing biodiversity loss, but also creating opportunities for shared dignity — such as gifting pollinator gardens regardless of income, and offering raised beds where residents can grow vegetables important to their culture and cuisine. It also means building community across lines that usually divide: class, race, housing status, and even church participation.

C. Justice and Beloved Community Building
At the core of this project is a commitment to radical inclusion and mutual dignity.We’ve piloted successful engagement with low-income housing developments, including welcome baskets for new residents, and are planning raised garden beds for cultural food ways and pollinator habitats. All offerings — plants, labor, design, care— are given freely, without regard to ability to pay. Participants are seen not as“recipients” but as partners in God’s renewing work.

Although there are existing efforts around pollinator education and social service provision in our region, few initiatives holistically integrate ecological action, spiritual formation, and justice work. Even fewer are rooted in neighborhoods and led by trusted local leaders — people who understand the community because they are part of it.

This proposal seeks to build the infrastructure to support what we have already begun— scaling a deeply relational model of change, led by clergy who are rooted in the life of their neighborhoods, the soil under their feet, and the hope of God’s renewal for all creation.

Our pilot projects have shown that there is a deep hunger for this kind of integrative work. Parishioners have responded enthusiastically to Tithe Your Turf, and local affordable housing leaders have welcomed our partnership with open arms. While most of this work has been sustained through volunteer hours and personal gifts, ithas also begun to draw the support of formal institutions. A Rocha, a respected international Christian conservation organization, has officially recognized and invested in our efforts—an affirmation of the theological and ecological integrity of our model. This past Easter, our community responded with remarkable generosity, contributing funds that reflect not just financial commitment but deep spiritual buy-in.

Project Vision and Theological Foundation Vision:
A Corridor of Care and Belovedness

The North Shore Pollinator Corridor envisions a network of native pollinator gardens, edible raised beds, and community gathering spaces woven through the neighborhoods of our region — from mobile home parks to historic downtowns to suburban lawns. This is more than an ecological project; it is a movement to build beloved community by restoring kinship with the land, feeding bodies and spirits, and cultivating relationships across lines of difference.

The “corridor” is literal: a contiguous region of habitat for pollinators, stitched together garden by garden. But it is also spiritual and social: a living metaphor for the ways love and justice move through community, crossing boundaries that would otherwise divide us. In this way, the project seeks to “pollinate” connection — between neighbors, across social strata, and with the wider community of creation.

Theological Foundation: Eucharistic Justice and Resurrection Hope
Our work is rooted in a theology of eucharistic justice. We begin at the table of the Lord, where we come as hungry people and are fed by the self-giving love of Jesus. But this feast does not end at the altar — it propels us into the world to feed others: those hungry in body through food insecurity, those hungry in soul through isolation or marginalization, and even the pollinators whose ecosystems have been depleted by human disregard. We do not make distinctions between the spiritual and the physical, or between the human and the more-than-human world. In Christ, all things hold together (Col. 1:17).

We are guided by the conviction that Jesus’ resurrection was not only for individuals, but for all creation. The healing of people, land, and relationships is one seamless work of redemption. Every native plant installed, every bed of herbs and vegetables cultivated, every welcome basket delivered to a new neighbor is, in a sense, a sacrament — an outward sign of the inward grace of God’s shalom.

This project offers a practical theology of resurrection: that even now, in the face of ecological grief and social fragmentation, the Spirit is making all things new. We believe that by plantingtangible signs of this renewal — gardens of justice, beauty, and welcome — we participate inthe unfolding of God's kingdom, here on the North Shore as it is in heaven.

Project Goals and Objectives
Overall Goal:
To cultivate ecological and social renewal across the North Shore through a visible, interconnected network of native pollinator and edible gardens — rooted in Christian theology, community collaboration, and restorative justice.

Objective 1: Restore Native Habitat and Support Pollinators
• Install at least 25 new native pollinator gardens in a contiguous North Shore corridor, with at least 10 in low-income or marginalized communities.
• Germinate and distribute 5,000 native pollinator plants, grown by volunteers through our “Tithe Your Turf” initiative.
• Provide individualized garden planning and education to each participating household or community site, tailored to their space and context.

Objective 2: Address Food Insecurity and Cultivate Dignity
• Install raised edible garden beds in collaboration with affordable housingcommunities, churches, and local organizations.
• Prioritize culturally relevant crops, inviting residents to grow herbs and vegetablesconnected to their ethnic and culinary traditions.
• Foster agency and participation by equipping residents to maintain and harvest fromtheir gardens, with support from community volunteers and local experts.

Objective 3: Educate and Equip the Wider Community
• Host 4 public workshops and seasonal events (e.g. spring planting, summer pollinatorwalks, fall harvest celebrations), offering hands-on learning and community connection.
• Develop accessible educational resources on native plants, pollinator habitat, foodjustice, and theology of creation care, both in print and online.• Partner with schools, churches, and civic groups to expand awareness andinvolvement across generations and demographics.

Objective 4: Build Beloved Community Through Shared Action
• Cultivate relationships across economic, racial, generational, and denominational lines, fostering a network of mutual care and shared purpose.
• Expand the Welcome Basket initiative to include new housing developments, pairing hospitality with ongoing opportunities for relationship-building and garden participation.
• Model gender reconciliation in leadership, as Canon Tim and Mothers Jen and Wendy work side by side in collaboration — embodying mutual respect and honoring each other’s gifts in practical theology and land stewardship.

Community Engagement and Partnerships
Connecting to community is the middle of our church’s three core values. Our project’ssuccess depends on strong community involvement and collaborative partnerships thatfoster a shared commitment to environmental stewardship and social justice. We will engage diverse stakeholders across the North Shore to cultivate a resilient pollinator corridor and beloved community.

• Building Relationships with Local Communities
We will prioritize outreach to neighborhoods of varying socio-economic backgrounds, creating welcoming spaces for dialogue, learning, and shared action. Through parishioner networks and community events, we aim to continue the work we’ve already begun to nurture trust and collaboration that transcends typical divides.

• Collaborating with Environmental and Social Justice Organizations
Partnerships with local native plant societies, conservation groups, affordable housing organizations, and food justice advocates will enhance resource sharing, technical expertise, and broaden the reach of our initiatives. These alliances will help bridge ecological restoration with the lived realities of marginalized communities. We have burgeoning relationships already being formed in each of these arenas which we will pursue further through this project.We are grateful for our growing partnership with A Rocha USA, and look forward to deepening that relationship this autumn, when their executive director is penciled into preach during Creationtide.

• Faith-Based Community Mobilization
Leveraging our church’s spiritual framework and existing congregation, we will mobilize volunteers through worship-based education, service opportunities, and prayerful reflection on creation care and social reconciliation. This spiritual grounding enriches community commitment and sustains long-term engagement.

• Educational Events and Workshops
Seasonal workshops on native plant gardening, invasive species management, and pollinator ecology will be offered both in-person and virtually to accommodate diverse participation. We will tailor programming to meet the needs and interests of different community groups.

• Citizen Science Engagement
We will initiate accessible and welcoming citizen science activities to encourage broad community participation in pollinator monitoring. This will include distributing simple pollinator identification guides and observation forms, hosting introductory workshops to build confidence in species recognition, organizing informal group walks to practice observation skills in supportive settings, and creating a digital platform for easy submission and sharing of pollinator sightings. These efforts will be evaluated through participant feedback, number of engaged volunteers, and quality and quantity of submitted observations.

Together, these community engagement strategies and partnerships will create a dynamic and inclusive foundation for the North Shore Pollinator Corridor, fostering ecological health and beloved community for all.

Conclusion and Call to Action
The North Shore Pollinator Corridor represents more than a restoration project—it is a transformative vision to rebuild beloved community grounded in ecological stewardship and social justice. Through the interwoven care of God’s creation and God’s people, we seek to nurture a flourishing landscape and a thriving, inclusive community where all beings—human and pollinator alike—can belong, grow, and be sustained.

Our partnership, rooted in faith, scholarship, and lived experience, reflects a commitment to holistic flourishing: honoring creation’s sacredness and addressing urgent social inequities with love and justice. This initiative offers a practical, replicable model for how faith communities can serve as catalysts for healing both land and lives.

This initiative exemplifies the Luce Foundation’s Religion and Theology Program’s goal to cultivate diverse knowledge communities and reimagine alternative futures grounded in faith-rooted action. Through partnerships with local leaders, educators, and volunteers, theNorth Shore Pollinator Corridor not only restores vital habitat but also weaves new narratives of ecological and social reconciliation. We invite the Luce Foundation to support this transformative work that deepens understanding, inspires faithful stewardship, and builds amore just and flourishing community across the North Shore.

With your support, we will empower neighbors across the North Shore to become caretakers of the earth and champions of beloved community. Together, we can restore habitat, fight food insecurity, dismantle isolation, and proclaim hope through action grounded in the resurrection promise.

Thank you for considering our proposal. We are eager to collaborate and share the abundant fruits of this endeavor, sowing seeds of justice, beauty, and connection for generations to come.