We continue to receive inspiring tree-planting proposals from Mennonite communities worldwide. Recently, groups in Indonesia and Kenya submitted plans to address the climate challenges facing their regions. Before we can fund these, however, we must first complete our current projects in Angola, DR Congo, and this year’s U.S. project in Orrville, Ohio.
The Ohio project is restoring 51 acres of farmland with 36,000 trees, while also repairing relationships with Indigenous peoples in central Ohio. After nearly three decades of service with Mennonite Central Committee in Africa and Asia, Jeanne Zimmerly Jantzi and Daniel Jantzi share, ‘We have been called more deeply into relationship with this land where we live. As people of faith, we have a calling to reconciliation and a restored relationship with the land and with the Indigenous people whose history is also on this land.’
This future forest will:
- Restore farmland to forest, improving soil, water, and wildlife habitat.
- Build partnership with a Native American organization in Ohio for ceremonies, cultural preservation, and forest foraging.
- Create a place for local people to reconnect with the land and with God’s creation.
Partners include Orrville Mennonite Church, Central Christian School, The Nature Conservancy, NRCS, Ohio State University, Killbuck Watershed Land Trust, and Mennonite Men. The Zimmerly Family has donated conservation rights for the entire farm to permanently protect this land. Read the full story here.
To complete our seven projects in DR Congo and Angola and this Ohio project, we need to raise $78,470.