By Kat Hoenke, Volunteer Program Director and Spatial Ecologist
Imagine a world where people of faith unite to create and protect beautiful places of wonder: gardens, forests, rivers, mountains, wetlands, meadows, and even deserts, all thriving with abundant life, serving as safe havens for God’s diverse creatures. A world where the Catholic Church is one of the largest habitat conservation networks that exists, creating and restoring these places, preserving threatened natural areas, and connecting these areas with Catholics across the world. Why wait? We can create this world today.
That’s why, to kick off the Saint Kateri Conservation Center’s new blog, we have chosen to highlight our Saint Kateri Habitat Program and a very special pilot project with the Sisters of Saint Francis of Philadelphia.
The Saint Kateri Habitat Program is designed to create and unite a community of Catholics who care for creation in their own backyards, by inspiring parishioners and Catholic organizations to create Saint Kateri Habitats and to register them on our website to share with others.
A Saint Kateri Habitat can be a garden, farm, trail, forest, wetland, or any kind of habitat that benefits both people and wildlife.
One of the qualities that makes this program unique is the requirement of a Catholic religious expression within the habitat, such as a statue of Mary or Saint Francis, or a prayer labyrinth. While we understand that all of creation can be a religious expression, in today’s increasingly secularized world we believe that Catholics often need to be more direct in order to safeguard the authentic good of people and nature.
The Conservation Center is working with Catholic individuals and religious organizations to create and register habitats for people and wildlife, such as parishes, schools, and religious orders. One such religious order is the Sisters of Saint Francis of Philadelphia.
The Sisters of Saint Francis are a community of sisters who model their lives after Saint Francis of Assisi, the Italian monk who is beloved by Catholics across the world. During his life, Saint Francis had a strong faith and lived a life of poverty, often times preaching to both people and the wild creatures he encountered. He is known as a patron saint of ecology and ecologists, and many who feel a connection to him feel strongly about caring for the environment and God’s creatures. It is no wonder then, that the sisters are so devoted to caring for the land that they own.
The sisters’ property, a total of 500 acres, consists of a convent and chapel, beautiful natural grounds with native plants and prayer spaces, and a fully organic and sustainable farm called the Red Hill Farm. The farm produces many fruits and vegetables throughout the year with help from the Farm Manager, Margaret Lilley, and the farm staff, as well as a beekeeper and many volunteer sisters and school groups that come to try their hand at volunteer gardening. The farm provides sustainably-grown food for the sisters, as well as over 150 members who receive shares of the crops each week.
The Red Hill Farm and other farms across the world would not survive without healthy habitats for pollinators, such as many species of bees, birds, butterflies, and small mammals. That’s why, in May of 2018, the Saint Kateri Conservation Center met with the sisters and decided that the Farm would be the perfect place to construct a large-scale Saint Kateri Habitat, to include a new 2,000 square foot garden of native plants, habitat structures, and educational signage for pollinators and people alike. The new garden will help to boost the yield of the farm through increased pollination, to educate visitors, and to provide a refuge for pollinators like hummingbirds and farm-friendly insects like ground beetles. Lilley, together with the sisters and volunteers, are committed to devoting hundreds of volunteer hours to the project in order to prepare the site and plant the garden. 
To make this habitat a reality, the Conservation Center is looking for funds to help purchase native plants, habitat structures, and signs for the Sisters of Saint Francis and other Catholic institutions that have expressed an interest. Since the idea came to fruition, the Conservation Center has applied to several small grant programs. However, finding funds for Catholic faith-based ecology projects has proven to be difficult. If you would like to donate to this cause, please visit https://kateri.org/donate/ and specify “SOSF Philadelphia” in your comments.
Read more about the Red Hill Farm on their website.
Thank you for reading, and God bless. Saint Kateri, pray for us.