Here in the Upper Wylye Valley Team we are striving to play our part in caring for God’s creation. With this year’s Lenten focus being #LiveLent: Care for God’s Creation, we kick started out Lenten journey with a pancake party where we “used our LOAF”.

It is no secret that the food we buy is contributing to climate change and the rapid decline of our beautiful world that God created. We have become used to all varieties of fruits and vegetables being available regardless of season or country of origin. Importing large amounts of food to Britain is contributing to our country’s carbon footprint which is now under scrutiny as our government are aiming for the UK to be carbon neutral by 2045.

Over the last few weeks, General Synod have committed to lead the way in caring for God’s creation by setting an aim for the Church of England to be carbon neutral by 2030. Our churches in the UWVT are working hard to do our bit by starting out with small and achievable changes. One of the changes we made was at our pancake party at Upton Lovell village hall where our drinks and ingredients followed ‘LOAF’ – Local, Organic, Animal-friendly, Fairtrade.

Our ingredients being ‘LOAF’ set us up for a fun filled and joyful evening where many families from across the valley came together to play games, make new friends, join in the pancake race, and eat tasty environmentally friendly pancakes.

This event has shown us how easy it can be to make small changes for a big impact. We’ve made a start and hope to build on this across our team in various different ways including working towards the A Rocha Eco awards.