We live in an amazing and wonderful world. Think about the richness, diversity, and abundance of life: a seed grows to produce a harvest, the colours on flowers or birds, sunrise, sunset, mountains, and lakes. People are incredible. The wonder of a newborn baby, the tiny fingers and so much more; look up at the immensity of the universe. Amazing balance How we can live here on our earth is almost too much to understand. The balance for life as we know it is incredible and we are learning that it can be changed. The earth receives approximately one billionth of the energy that the sun pours into space - just right for our life systems. From the sun, the earth is only a tiny speck in space. Sunlight goes everywhere. Some of the energy that comes to Earth is reflected into space by clouds and ice, some is absorbed by oceans and land - just right for our life systems. Oceans and forests and plants breathe huge amounts of oxygen and carbon dioxide all the time - just right for our life syst...

Not long ago, shopping second hand carried the stigma that you weren’t well-off enough to buy new. But that image is fast-changing.   In a recent survey, thrift shoppers reported that their money-saving motivations were less of a concern than their concern for a changing climate. Shoppers are voting with their dollars for a healthier planet, and it’s not just small potatoes anymore. In 2018 the 2 nd hand economy weighed in at $27.3 billion in Canada.* Our local MCC Thrift store is one of the finest and largest around. To learn more about the great work the Altona MCC is doing in our community, I sat down with Dave Rempel, store manager and here’s what I learned.   What sells well?   Clothing and shoes (women’s clothing is the top seller) Major and small appliances Housewares – pots, pans, silverware, dishes Furniture and collectibles Christmas trees, lights and decorations What is not sellable? Broken or food stained containers or cutting boards Chipped glasswa...

In March of 1972, Linie Friesen, Selma Loewen, Susan Giesbrecht and Sara Stoesz opened the first MCC Thrift Shop in Altona, Manitoba with an expectation the project might last “three to six months.” The shop began to thrive and produced about $1,000 for MCC during the first six months of operation. Over forty years later, their vision has grown a North American network of over 100 shops, generating millions of dollars every year for the programs of Mennonite Central Committee. Shopping at your local MCC Shop is an affordable and environmentally friendly way to support a great cause so I sat down with Dave Rempel, the current manager of the Altona thrift store recently to see how ACAN’s column could help to support their work. I thought our conversation was going to center around donations and sales. I wanted to know how to educate the public about what items they would like to receive more of or what items they wished folks didn’t drop off at all and so on, and I did learn a lot about ...

Gift in a jar There are many ideas on the internet for gifts in jars that you can assemble with ingredients that you may already have at home!  Search for ‘gifts in a jar’ and explore the possibilities that will fit your budget.  Layer all the dry ingredients to make your jar attractive and attach the recipe.  This works well for cookies, soups,  brownies, and hot cocoa.  Other ideas include “spa” items, such as sugar scrubs, homemade body butter, or bath salts.   Art from the heart Even the littlest kiddos can create art for a loved one.   Fingerprints made the leaves on this beautiful little tree.  Find a frame at a thrift store to make it extra special! Upcycling Repurpose a favourite t-shirt or blanket into a teddy bear or special pillow.  A crazy quilt or a simple block quilt is also a really fun way to reuse those favourite items from childhood. Cork stoppers make fun ornaments Get creative with an old barn board and some paint. ...

The climate, OUR climate, - the only one we have, is changing. This is very important  in our world, in this home for the human family, in this home for our grandchildren. This is large and complicated, about environment, energy and the economy. Understanding some of this can help us take care of Mother Earth. We are all in this together, being affected by it, reducing it or adapting to it - oil sands worker, activist on the street and all in between. Share the load, minimize the disruptions, at all levels - in families, cities and towns, provinces and country, and even globally. Take care of one another. For the children and youth, for the children of tomorrow, we need to do everything we can for stability and security. Think about this at every level, from families to countries and more, fitting into a larger pattern. Seldom does trouble stay in only one corner of a lifeboat. Flatten the curve. We can reduce and slow the change. Act together, locally and globally, to flatten and ...

  If world representatives at the UN climate conference in Glasgow put talk into action, we could forestall the worst impacts of the rapidly accelerating climate crisis. But we have to look beyond the Conference of the Parties —   COP26   this year. If agreements under the   UN Framework Convention on Climate Change   are undermined through other international structures, we could face a grim future. Negotiations at COP26 — from October 31 to November 12 — are critical to building on and strengthening measures set out in the 2015  Paris Agreement . They include raising climate finance and finalizing rules on international carbon markets, agreeing on transparency and a global goal for adaptation and more. One shortcoming of the COP process, though, is that the Paris Agreement’s system of accountability doesn’t allow for enforcement of “ nationally determined contributions ,” which spell out each country’s plans to reduce emissions and adapt to climate change...

Traditional economic theory dictates that ultimately any business or corporation will be successful only if it can make a financial profit; that is, keep the bottom financial line in the black. On the face of it, this makes a lot of sense. After all, if you keep on losing money it will be impossible to continue operating indefinitely.  However, increasingly the concept of maintaining a “triple bottom line” in your business venture is gaining traction around the world. This term was first coined by John Elkington in 1994. “His argument was that companies should be preparing three different (and quite separate) bottom lines. One is the traditional measure of corporate profit – the bottom line of the profit and loss account. The second is the bottom line of a company’s ‘people account’ – a measure in some shape or form of how socially responsible an organization has been throughout its operation. The third is the bottom line of the company’s ‘planet’ account – a measure of how environ...