Incoming FACS Executive Director Rebecca Elliott on Her First Few Weeks

FACS Executive Director Rebecca Elliott

It’s a tremendous honor to join Faith Alliance for Climate Solutions as its Executive Director. 

These first weeks have been very exciting.  Just today, I met with a funny, boisterous green team leader who is ready to take the next steps with her congregation, and who wants FACS’s help to think through what those next steps might be.

Whether it’s exploring advocacy for better policies or holding the first environmental movie night in your place of worship, we at FACS want to help.  And to better understand how that help would make the most difference, I would love to chat with you. 

Please send me an email; I’d very much appreciate an opportunity to schedule coffee or a phone call.  We can talk through what your interests are and how FACS can help fulfill them.  I can be reached at info@faithforclimate.org

Until then, please allow me to share some information on my background.

Professionally, I come most recently from Catholic Climate Covenant, where I helped Catholic people and institutions work together to address climate change.  Although I am not Catholic, it was very exciting to be at the forefront of the U.S. response to Pope Francis’s recent encyclical “On the Care of Our Common Home.” The encyclical itself is beautifully wrought, and it’s wonderful to see the new conversations about creation that it has started among people of faith.

Personally, I find sustenance in my family life.  I have two young children and an older godson, who is very present in our lives. I attend a tiny Christian church.  The vision of my church is based on the beatitudes, which call us to serve and love one another. 

As you might expect, some of my response to that call has meant living more lightly on the Earth.  At home, we garden, compost, and raise chickens and bees. We drive an electric car, have switched to clean energy, and eat vegetarian food.  Even though we make an effort to reduce our contribution to climate change, I am very aware of how much bigger my footprint is than the footprint of my brothers and sisters in poverty.

I hope that by working together with my neighbors, I can connect with the good spirit that moves us and makes greater things possible.  My first few weeks here at Faith Alliance for Climate Solutions have really affirmed the goodness of this community.

Eric Goplerud, Jean Wright, Scott Peterson, and all of my new friends on the Community Council have been very welcoming. New friends among Northern Virginia’s congregations have also opened their doors and their arms, demonstrating the loving spirit that makes this work such a joy.

I hope to add you to that list of new friends.  Please do be in touch at info@faithforclimate.org

Yours in hope,

Rebecca Elliott

http://www.faithforclimate.org/