Stories Sustain Us #40 – The Role of Faith in Environmental Stewardship

Summary
In this conversation, Bonnie Sorak shares her journey from growing up in Brooklyn to becoming an environmental advocate with Interfaith Partners for the Chesapeake. She discusses her early experiences with nature, her transition to veganism for health reasons, and her involvement in community food movements. Bonnie emphasizes the importance of stormwater management and the role of faith communities in environmental stewardship, advocating for sustainable practices that can be implemented at both community and individual levels. In this conversation, Bonnie Sorak discusses the intersection of faith and environmental stewardship, emphasizing the role of congregations in promoting sustainability. She highlights the importance of rethinking traditional notions of beauty in nature, advocating for a shift towards more life-sustaining landscapes. Bonnie shares insights on empowering congregations to take action through various programs, fostering community involvement, and the significance of interfaith collaboration in addressing environmental justice. The discussion culminates in a call to action for individuals to engage in local environmental efforts and a vision of hope for a sustainable future.

About the Guest
Bonnie Sorak, Director of Outreach, Interfaith Partners for the Chesapeake
Originally from Brooklyn, New York, Bonnie graduated from Florida State University where she had a double major in Communications/Public Relations and Political Science. Having worked for IPC since 2014, she has come to understand many of the barriers they face. She is always thrilled to share her experiences to help congregations start and sustain their environmental initiatives.

Show Notes
Interfaith Partners for the Chesapeake: https://www.interfaithchesapeake.org/

Takeaways
•Her love for nature developed during summers in the Catskills.
•Bonnie co-founded a green team at her synagogue.
•She emphasizes the importance of changing hearts and minds for environmental action.
•Stormwater management is crucial for protecting local ecosystems.
•Faith communities have a moral responsibility to care for the environment.
•Simple actions like planting native plants can have a significant impact. Congregations can redefine beauty by creating life-sustaining landscapes.
•Love thy neighbor extends to all creatures, including insects and birds.
•The interconnectedness of humans and nature is vital for survival.
•Emotional connections drive people to take environmental action.
•Training programs can empower individuals to lead green initiatives.
•Community involvement is essential for maintaining environmental projects.
•Interfaith collaboration can amplify advocacy efforts for environmental justice.
•Everyone can contribute to environmental stewardship, regardless of their abilities.
•Taking action, no matter how small, can lead to significant change.
•Hope for the future lies in collective action and community engagement.

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Transcript

Steven 
When stormwater rushes unchecked through our neighborhoods, it doesn't just erode our landscapes, it washes away our connection to the ecosystems we depend on. But what if congregations, schools, and community members could become the solution by planting native species, building rain gardens, and redefining beauty as something that sustains life? Hey everybody, I'm Steven Schauer, and welcome to Stories Sustain Us.

where we explore the extraordinary journeys of people who are transforming our world through courage, compassion, and commitment. Today's episode is a powerful reminder that environmental stewardship isn't just about big policy changes. It starts in our backyards, in our places of worship, and in our hearts. We're joined by Bonnie Sorak, a woman whose path from the concrete jungle of Brooklyn to the lush forests of the environmental movement is nothing short of inspiring.

You'll hear how her journey to veganism began with a desire to protect her children, how she co-founded a green team at her synagogue, and why she believes faith communities are uniquely positioned to lead the charge in environmental justice. Bonnie opens up about the power of emotional connection to nature, why community-based stormwater projects matter, and how every one of us, regardless of age, ability, or background, can play a role in sustaining the planet.

whether it's planting a single native flower or launching an interfaith coalition, Bonnie's message is clear. Small actions taken together create massive ripples of hope. Bonnie Sorak is the Director of Outreach for Interfaith Partners for the Chesapeake. A Brooklyn native, she holds degrees from Florida State University in communications, public relations, and political science. Bonnie has worn many hats throughout her career, from nonprofit work to real estate.

but her enduring passion lies in advocacy, collaboration, and community building. Devoted vegan for nearly three decades and the mother of four boys, Bonnie has volunteered extensively in her children's schools and her congregation, where she led environmental initiatives for over 12 years. Since joining the Interfaith Partners for the Chesapeake in 2014, she's become a guiding force.

helping congregations overcome barriers and cultivate sustainable futures through grassroots organizing and interfaith partnerships. Get ready to be inspired by how one woman's deep love for family, faith, and the planet blossomed into a movement that's helping entire communities use their faith to reconnect with the earth. One rain garden, one native plant, and one story at a time. Here on Stories Sustain Us, where we are inspiring action through the power of storytelling.

Steven 
Good morning, Bonnie. Welcome to Stories Sustain Us. How are you today?

Bonnie Sorak 
Hey Steve, I'm great. How are you?

Steven 
I am doing well. Tell everybody where you are this morning. I'm in the Seattle area and you're across the country on the East Coast somewhere, I think.

Bonnie Sorak 
I'm joining you from Ellicott City, which is a suburb of Baltimore. We're kind of between Baltimore and DC in Maryland on the Chesapeake Bay.

Steven 
Fantastic. Yeah, I just had another guest on a short time ago talking about the Chesapeake Bay. There's a lot of, in that long history, decades of work being done to help clean up that bay. And I'm real excited to learn about the work that you and your organization are doing. But first, let's learn a little bit about you. Bonnie, what's your story? Where did you grow up and what was your journey to get to being part of the Interfaith Partners organization in support of the Chesapeake Bay?

Bonnie Sorak 
Yes!

Yes, it's been a story. So I grew up in Brooklyn, New York, so surrounded by cement. you know, so my exposure to nature as a young child was...

the ants that crawled across my sidewalk and whirly-purly bugs. So not a lot there in the city to enjoy, but I was also very blessed. My family got to spend our summers in the Catskill Mountains in a bungalow colony. So I was kind of a free range kid when we got up to the mountains. And so I have just really wonderful memories of...

Steven 
You

nice.

Bonnie Sorak 
And we stopped going there when I was about eight years old. So I had to be very young, just wandering in the woods and flipping over rocks and finding more whirly-furly bugs and thinking, well, how cool is that? They're here and they're in the city too and making that connection. And there used to be wild blueberries growing. So I have very...

Steven
yeah.

Nice.

Bonnie Sorak 
fond memories of just sitting and picking and eating blueberries that were just there. So that's kind of where the love, I think, of nature started for me as a city girl, getting to have that nature experience. And then at one point I was in elementary school and I really don't know why, for people who are from New York, know that schools don't have names, so I went to PS 52. And there was some special environmental program at PS whatever the next

Steven 
Sure.

Bonnie Sorak 
school over was. And I guess my mom signed me up for it. So it was a big adventure that we would get to go like on Wednesday afternoons we could walk from the one elementary school to the other elementary school to do this environmental workshop of some kind. And I make memories of that. But so there was something there that my mother noticed I was interested in and sent me to this. And I just remember the only thing I really remember from that experience was the theme of that class was

Steven 
Yeah.

Bonnie Sorak
was at the time when I make it the song Big Yellow Taxi, so pay paradise and put up a parking lot. that whole concept of that, you know, that lyric just really resonated with me as I was learning about butterflies and things that you shouldn't, you know, living in a concrete city that we shouldn't be paying paradise and we should be protecting paradise. So I kind of grew up with that as a young girl.

Steven 
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's a great song.

Yeah.

Bonnie Sorak 
So, but I think if you fast forward, lots of years, so that was in the early 70s. I don't wanna date myself, but that was in the early 70s. So that was right around when the first Earth Day happened. And some of it was just a lot of people watching our rivers burn and just, so all of that was part of that time of our life. So fast forward to about,

Steven 
Sure.

Earth Day, yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Bonnie Sorak 
30 years ago when I was having my first child, I realized both my husband and I both had really severe allergies as children. And it had always been something that I heard, I was allergic to cow's milk and he was allergic to cow's milk. I had terrible asthma and allergies, specifically in the springtime. He had eczema, terrible eczema. So after we got married and we were having our first child,

Like, I don't want my children to have the same terrible allergies that I had when I was a child and started researching.

and came across, read in several books that, you the highest allergens, one of them was dairy. And so I said to my husband, you know, maybe you should cut dairy out of your diet and maybe that will help you with your eczema. So literally he was buying band-aids from Costco 100 at a time because he would have all of his fingers wrapped up in band-aids, right? And I was like, well, maybe you should try, you know, I read this. And so he went off of dairy first.

Steven 
no. Yeah, yeah.

Bonnie Sorak 
And within three weeks of going off dairy, his eczema that he had pretty much his whole life went away. And I was like, wow, that's really compelling, right? So.

Steven 
Wow.

Yeah?

Bonnie Sorak 
We have our first child and he had an allergic reaction to something and so I dug deeper into it and ended up going to see a physician speak, a pediatrician speak, his name is Dr. Dave Gordon and he was a proponent of a vegan diet for children. And so our child was six months old, I looked at my husband, I said, well, this makes sense to me if you want to avoid cancer and heart disease and all these other things.

and allergies.

Steven 
Yeah.

Bonnie Sorak 
try this and you know we're gonna raise this child as a vegan and we should be vegan too. So my son who's now 31 years old his first birthday we became vegan and I've had four children all boys and for the most part they didn't get any allergies so you can't do a double-blind study on your kids so there's no way to know if they would have had allergies if we hadn't done this but what I know is that that lifestyle choice really

Steven 
I'll probably join along, yeah.

Bonnie Sorak 
had a positive benefit on our family's life. So, and that was done for health reasons, right? So, but over time, as you're, if you're raising children in that way, there's a lot of other benefits to it. So spiritual, ethical, environmental. So people say to me all the time, well, I don't think I would ever go back just because I've made this choice. I've done it now for 30 years. It's not something that I think I would.

Steven
has been working for you and your family. Absolutely, yeah.

Bonnie Sorak 
can't go back on because there's so many other benefits other than trying to avoid those outings. So going down that road led me when my kids were in elementary school.

We had we have GT programs, getting talented programs. have special kind of really cool things out of my kids. I guess having grown up this way, they tended to be to join the green teams at their schools. So I would support their, you know, with green team efforts and things like that. So we did recycling and terra cycling at their school and just kind of got involved in that.

Steven
Yeah.

Bonnie Sorak 
And then I got involved in the local food movement and ended up running a community supported agriculture program for the PTAs at the schools that my kids were at and then also my synagogue Jewish by faith and I'm member of Columbia Jewish congregation. So we ran the community supported agriculture program which is for people who are not familiar.

That's something where you're trying to buy food locally from a farm that's within 100 miles of where you live. So we had a wonderful program that was sponsored by the PTAs and the farmer that we chose donated for every 10 shares that we sold. They donated a share so we were providing fresh food to the families in our community that couldn't afford to buy fresh food. So it had this wonderful community impact.

Steven 
Sure, sure.

They're neat, yeah.

Bonnie Sorak 
was still within line of my choices, but got me into the whole local food movement. And when working through the PTAs and my synagogue, I also started a green team or was the co-founder of a green team at my synagogue.

I had at the time I had four children under nine years old. So I was like, I went the way that started is my synagogue held an environmental film series. So they held three films in a row and they were held during Sunday school or during when my older boys were in Hebrew school. So my youngest was two years old at the time. And so I took him along with me to watch the last movie. And at the end of the movie, the chair of the committee, which the committee that was running this program was called Takun alum, which is

Steven 
Yeah.

Bonnie Sorak 
for Jewish people that chakun olam means repair the world. So was the committee that works on trying to make positive change in the world. And at the end of the movie, the chair of the committee said, well, you know, so now we see what all the problems are. As a conversation, what are we going to do about this?

Steven
Nice.

Bonnie Sorak 
and everyone looks around and I'm like, who's going to step up? And an older gentleman that I did not know raised his hand and said, well, I'm willing to co-chair a committee. And I was like, oh, well, I can co-chair a committee too. So I can't do meetings and things like that because I've got little kids, but I can do things behind the scenes. So I developed a really wonderful relationship with this person that I probably never would have interacted with because he's easily 30 years old.

Steven 
Yeah.

Bonnie Sorak 
than I am or just in different stages of life. So I will say that one of the best things that happened in forming is what ultimately became the Green Team congregation. just having an intergenerational relationship within my own synagogue was so meaningful. It connected us in a way that I just had never...

Steven 
Sure sure.

Yeah.

Bonnie Sorak 
a co-benefit, right, of doing this. And he and I ran, Dan Cohen, he and I ran the Green Team together, and then he ended up with some health issues, so he had to drop back, so I went from being the co-chair to being the full chair. And I was the chairperson or co-chairperson of the Green Team at my synagogue for 12 years. I don't recommend that.

Steven 
Right. That's really beautiful.

Hahaha

Bonnie Sorak 
So, but we did wonderful, wonderful things within my own faith community. So, one of the funniest stories I have is, so, I have a reputation of being someone who gets things done. So, as co-chair they, well, as,

I was asked to, we have a community Seder every year and we have a community Break the Fast at Yom Kippur. And so they had asked me if I, yes. Yes. So, yeah. Absolutely.

Steven
For those who may not be familiar with the Seder and those traditions, do you want to explain those real quick? Is that part of the story that this is so people can understand your faith tradition

and the meaning behind those?

Bonnie Sorak 
Yeah.

So I'll start with Passover because it's starting this week. So Passover is the, it comes from the story in the Bible when the slaves are, the Jewish slaves are free from Egypt and there's the ten plagues and Passover is the angel of death passing over homes and the tradition is to not eat leavened food. So we eat matzo, we don't eat bread and you hold a seder every year to tell two

Steven 
Sure. Yeah.

Yeah.

Bonnie Sorak
tell the story of our liberation of freedom. I, so what I learned was because of my vegan diet, our vegan diet, like people are very skeptical about that. that year I offered, one year I offered all the food that I made for Seder.

Steven
Thank you. Thank you for sharing that. Thank you. Yeah.

Bonnie Sorak 
which there are traditional, every family has traditional foods, matzo ball soup probably being the most famous thing, Because we have lots of chicken soup, matzo ball. I made matzo ball soup, but I had spent years perfecting vegan alternatives to the regular food. So I ended up offering to our community, we had an adult ed series of classes and I offered matzo ball soup to nuts.

And so I marketed it as a cholesterol free dinner menu because if you say something vegan people don't want it. But if you say something's cholesterol free and lot of people are worried about their cholesterol, people showed up. So I made all the food and actually my co-chair came and everyone had samples of all the food and at the end of it he said, wow, that was really delicious. Like I had no idea.

Steven 
Yeah, that might turn them off.

Sure, sure.

Bonnie Sorak 
He's like, I might be able to do this, right? you know, so it, people, you know, help people to learn about, right? and by the way, it's vegan, it's cholesterol free, but it also means that it's vegan. And so they were, you know, they're to do that. so that's the Passover piece. But for Yom Kippur, that's in the fall. We have the Jewish holiday of the new year. And then part of that is for Yom Kippur, we atone for our sins.

Steven 
Sure, open their minds a little bit more to other options,

Surprise!

Bonnie Sorak 
and you fast for a day and then you break the fast. And generally the break the fast is what Jews would call a dairy meal, which means there's no meat. So it's usually bagels and lox and whitefish and things like that. my synagogue hosted a community break the fast. And so this one year they asked me if I would coordinate the community break the fast.

was like, sure. And so I did it. It was all vegan. And so I made like a lox spread out of a lox substitute, lox-as-smoke salmon. And I made table tents that explained, this is back when, I don't if you remember the Wendy's campaign with Where's the Beef? So I made table tents that said, where's the lox?

Steven 
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, I do.

Bonnie Sorak 
and did it both sides of the table tents, like the problems with farmed salmon and the environmental problems with catching wild salmon. so we don't have locks and explained why we don't have locks. But everything else was delicious and nobody went hungry. Well, they never asked me to do that again. And about five years later, my mom who lived in Florida moved up to be with

Steven 
Sure, sure.

Ha ha ha!

Bonnie Sorak 
close to her grandchildren in Maryland. And so she joined the synagogue as well. And so she was meeting people on her own. And so they were like, who are you? And she'd say, well, Bonnie Sorak's my daughter. And they're like, Bonnie Sorak. She's the one that didn't let us have locks for break the fast. So five years had gone by. And what people remembered was that we didn't have locks at break the fast. So it was a good lesson in.

Steven 
Yeah. Yeah.

Bonnie Sorak 
You can make change, there's always certain traditions you just really have to be, even though I gave them the explanation, and it did stick with them. What they remembered was I didn't like

Steven 
Sure.

Right.

Yeah, those traditions, they have a lot of power and emotional connection to them.

Bonnie Sorak 
But, and even I

had a climate scientist on my green team and he was upset about not having locs. I was like, really? You know better than, like, you know why we shouldn't have had locs. So anyway, so that, so we started the green team. And then as my youngest child started school, I rolled the kids, so was like time to go back to work.

Steven
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Bonnie Sorak 
And someone would come through our green team. had run a series. It was kind of like a book club light was called menu menu for the future. And so it was like a small book and articles and it was a discussion circle. So once a week during Sunday school, the adults would come, they have read the article and then we would discuss the article. It all about food choices and agriculture and the climate impacts of all of that.

Steven 
Sure.

Bonnie Sorak
So woman who had come to that, who was from another synagogue, but she learned about this and participated in this class with me, out of the blue she forwarded me, I had mentioned to her, you know, it's probably time for me to go back to work. I know this is in school now, and so I could go work part time somewhere. And out of the blue she sent me a little advertisement about this organization called Interfaith Parks for the Chesapeake.

that I had never heard of before. like, I can look them up on Google and see what this is. And they were looking for a part-time outreach coordinator. And she said, I think you'd be perfect for this. And she sat on the advisory, the organization's advocacy committee. So that's how she was involved with the organization. And she sent it to me. She said, I think you'd be perfect for this job. So I applied. And I got hired. That was 11 years ago. So I was hired as a part-time.

outreach coordinator and just over time that just grew into full-time work and I've here 11 years.

Steven 
Yeah. Thank you for sharing that journey and how you got from Brooklyn to the position you're in now. And before we jump a little bit deeper into your work with the interfaith partners for the Chesapeake, I want to back you up a little bit in time and learn a little bit more about your journey. So you started out in Brooklyn, and I understand from your bio that you also then eventually spent some time in Florida.

and then landed in this Baltimore area. Can you tell me a little bit about those transitions? How did your life go from the streets of Brooklyn surrounded by concrete and the ants crawling on the ground to Florida? What was that kind of transition like for you?

Bonnie Sorak 
sure.

It's interesting. So growing up in Brooklyn, I never wanted to drive a car because the drivers in New York City were just crazy, including my father. He would make a left-hand turn from the right lane. I was always nervous driving on the highways and everything. But then in my junior year of high school, my mother and my stepfather, he retired and they moved to Florida. So I moved to Florida in my junior year of high school.

Steven 
Sure.

Okay, let's...

Bonnie Sorak 
And having

been this free range kid who could get around, I took public transportation, I walked through the city and all that, I ended up in Delray Beach, Florida. You can't go anywhere without a car. Like immediately, you have to have a car. So I got a license at 15 years old because I couldn't stand being driven everywhere. Suburbia was just not something that I was.

Steven 
Sure.

Right, you get to the Sumbelout cities, you need a vehicle, right? Yep.

Bonnie Sorak 
Brooklyn is actually a server suburb of the city, but it's still city, right? So So what's a couple years of high school in Florida and then went to college Florida state in Tallahassee my husband went to high school universities and then when we both graduated He got a job in South Carolina, so he's there and then after that

Steven 
It still is. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

Bonnie Sorak 
We moved to suburb of Richmond, Virginia. And then after that, we got transferred up to the Baltimore area. So that's how we landed here in Baltimore. I did work in Florida. I did a paper once on Oxbow Lakes, which is how the Army Corps of Engineers ruined them. Like changed the watershed.

Steven 
That's where you set it, okay. Yeah, so it's.

Yeah, they're...

Bonnie Sorak 
My

initial understanding of watersheds and all of that came from a college research that I had done on that. But I did not know, when I moved here and took this job, literally, we focused on the problem of the stormwater runoff. And I literally didn't know anything about it. So when I started the job, I was reading everything I could possibly read about stormwater runoff. I don't know if I'm getting ahead of your questions, but.

Steven 
Sure. Yep. Yep.

No,

no, yeah, no, this is fine.

Bonnie Sorak 
One of the things that

really hit home, and people had recommended me to read this book and read this book, and there was one book that I picked up and I read and I got it at a used bookstore. It was written in the 1950s. And I was like, well, so we've known what the problem is since the 1950s, and yet we all hear every year the report card comes out on the Chesapeake Bay.

Steven 
Yeah.

Bonnie Sorak 
there are improvements, but we still have a problem. I'm like, so why do we still have this problem if we've known the science behind what the problem is, and we knew what we know what can fix it, why do we still have this problem? And what I've come to learn over the 11 years is that the reason we still have this problem is even though scientists and professionals know what to do, it's really hard.

Steven 
Right.

Right, right.

Bonnie Sorak 
to get people to change their behavior and to understand what they do and how what they do impacts our natural environment. So while we make games, what we really need to do is to change people's hearts and minds so that they understand that they have a part to play. And that's what my organization really works on, is specifically with faith communities, is trying to get the faith communities to change their behavior.

Steven 
Yeah.

Bonnie Sorak 
So often when I go into a congregation, if it's a Judeo-Christian congregation, I'll do a visualization with them and say, know, close your eyes, picture the Garden of Eden, you know, and maybe the beginning of Genesis and how, you know, God created the heavens and the earth, and go through that and then say, okay, so open your eyes and tell me what you saw in the Garden of Eden.

And they'll say, you know, they saw an apple tree, right? We all know there's an apple tree in the Garden of Eden. You know, there's a snake. There's a right. What do we see in the Garden of Eden? And so we'll go through these trees, the birds, the flowers, the water. I'm like, well, did you see a parking lot? Did you write? Did you see a roof? Right. So, right. So you write. So we've got whatever entity you believe in created a beautiful, perfect world and

Steven 
Sure, sure, sure, sure. Yeah, yeah, sure.

Yeah, that we paved paradise, right? It goes back to the song.

Bonnie Sorak 
People have come in and changed that world and it's those changes that are that are creating the problem So we have a moral. So there's a moral responsibility to fix that problem But every religion has you know a reference for the natural world and the preservation of the natural world not just for us But for future generations like that's pretty much baked into every faith tradition So it's so so you

Steven 
Yeah.

Bonnie Sorak 
you know, in order for us to gather and be a congregation and worship in whatever way we're going to worship, we've created a problem. And so what are we going to do about that problem? So our organization really spends our time and efforts in trying to help them understand their contribution to the problem and then help them to find resources to mitigate the problems that they're causing. So we work with our technical partners and things to...

do side assessments to say here's where your impervious surfaces are, this is where, this is how you can fix it. You can put in a rain garden, you can put in a cistern, you can plant trees, you can plant native plants to make your lawns are terrible, plant native plants. So these are the things that you can do at your congregation to improve the situation. But then it's also, and that's all great, and we focus on that and a lot of the deliverables that we have for the grants that we...

yet are all based on doing those implementation of those in the ground projects to have actual water quality benefit. But what we really want to do is change people's hearts and minds. We want them to learn what they're going to learn at the trusted space of their congregation and then say, well, I just planted some trees at my congregation. I have a space in my backyard. I can go plant the tree. Or I may not have space to plant the tree, but I can have a plant that's going to be good for pollinators.

Steven 
Yeah.

Right.

Bonnie Sorak 
on my front porch or on my back balcony or something. Everybody can do something. So what we try to do is educate them enough so that people can make whatever change they're willing to make and that if all of us make some changes, we should have a positive.

Steven 
Absolutely. I love that. there's a few, I think, technical things that you've shared in the last few minutes that I want to back up and just make sure the audience members, because I'm right there with you every step of the way. I'm like, this is all great. But I want to make sure people who may not have your experience or my experience that understand what we're talking about and a couple of things that I think you mentioned that are worth kind of

Bonnie Sorak 
Great.

Steven 
slowing down and explaining a little bit for folks. And you you mentioned the term, you know, stormwater management and impervious services and, and parking lots and, know, some folks who may not fully understand you. Well, what's the problem with all this, right? I need a place to park my car when I go shopping or, you know, my house needs a roof on it or, you know, what, what are, what are problem with all these things? And for those who may not.

fully have a deeper grasp of the science behind all this is there's pollutants on these hard services, these impervious services. There's, you know, on our roadways, there's pollutants from our tires and, you know, oil and gases and anything else that can be there on our roofs in our parking lots. There's bird waste and other things that have bacteria in them. So when it rains, that stormwater runoff, that rain's got to go somewhere.

And it's picking up all those pollutants from those hard surfaces and generally ending up in the nearest creek, which eventually ends up in the nearest river. And eventually in your case ends up in the Chesapeake Bay. And when you're in a highly urbanized area, like around Chesapeake Bay, you can have this wonderful natural ecosystem and resource then become so terribly polluted that it's something that's not, you know, healthy for the fish and wildlife that need it, but it's so unhealthy that...

that humans can't interact with it either. So everything that you're talking about, rain gardens and cisterns, these are all these really simple ways that are allowing us to mimic nature in our developments. That we can still have our urban environments and our communities with all the amenities that we've come to appreciate, but we're trying to mimic nature a little bit where we can slow the water down, we can capture it, we can allow it to.

to filter through a garden, a pretty area, know, planted with native species that are to that area, which are then helpful for, you know, the habitat and the birds and the critters that live in that area. So super excited about everything you just described. I just thought we should slow down a little bit and make sure that people understand.

Bonnie Sorak 
Right, right, I know.

Steven 
what it is you're talking about, because you're talking about some incredibly important stuff that is not just relevant to Chesapeake Bay, but it's wherever you are in urban, wherever in the world, these are practices that we should all be looking at implementing structurally in our communities, supporting those policymakers to make sure that our developments are happening that way. But as you also pointed out, you can do it in your own yard. I don't have a yard.

but I've planted native plants on my back little apartment porch so I can still support pollinators. So there's little things we can all do and it sounds like that's the message that you're sharing and I think it's a really powerful and important message. So did I capture everything correctly from your perspective as well?

Bonnie Sorak
I'm grabbing right up.

Yes, absolutely.

Just a couple of things. So the problems are not only with what's in the water, it's that the velocity of the water. So, you know, so with more and more development, there's more and more runoff. comes down and up, you know, and we have bigger storms than we used to have. So for folks that may have heard, like in Ellicott City, we've had 2000 year floods, one in 2016 and one in 2018. My husband and I actually had more

Steven 
Please.

Yes.

Bonnie Sorak 
in

one of those floods, we lost a car in the flood. There were over 300 cars lost in the flood. In the one in 2016, two people died. In the one in 2018, another individual drowned. So flood waters and these incidences, you just have to watch the news to see that it's more more flooding. we have cycles of droughts and floods. So everything is just more intense than it used to be. And our systems are not set up for that. So they get overwhelmed really easily. So the quantity,

Steven 
Hmm. no.

Yeah.

Bonnie Sorak 
the intensity and the quantity of the water that's coming down is greater than it used to be. And it's also hotter than it used to be. So our local streams, like the numbers and types, and I'm not a scientist. I've picked up things along these, over my life in these 11 years, but, if the water is warmer, then it doesn't support the same life that the invertebrate and things that need cooler waters, the species that need cooler waters, like all of that is affected.

Steven 
Sure, sure, sure.

Right.

Bonnie Sorak 
circle of light is affected by the changing of how our swarms are coming and the quantity and how warm the water is. So that has a huge impact on your local stream and ultimately the beverage downstream from there.

Steven 
Absolutely.

Bonnie Sorak
So

anything that you can do to help. So the term that we use all the time is slow it down, spread it out, sink it in. Right. So you can capture. So why do you have a rain barrel? Why do you have a sister? And why do you have a rain garden? It's to get that runoff from your roof or the driveway or whatever it is. Capture it so you're so in the storm, it's not racing really fast. You're holding on to it and then you slowly release it after the storm is over so that the whole program

Steven 
Yes. Yep.

Bonnie Sorak 
the whole process isn't overwhelmed in that storm. So if you slow it down, the whole idea of rain gardens is to get it spread out and let it sink in over time.

So that's what we work with trying to get to help you having people understand. so native plants and things like that help because they have longer root systems than non-native plants do. So they help to soak up that water. They help to prevent erosion. So there's so many different co-benefits to planting native plants. So this is something, know, so we do have a proselytizing religion. We proselytize about how lawns are bad, grass, know, grasses.

a green desert, call it, you it's a green desert. If you look at a, you know, and a lot of congregations have these great big beautiful lawns that they're very proud of. And so we come in and say, you know, it's a total mind shift of, you know, what is beautiful? What does God think is beautiful? So if you look at this lawn that we love so much, and it's not, there's no life there. You don't see bugs, you don't see butterflies, you don't see birds. It's just a beautiful lawn, but it's not sustaining life. So what,

Steven
Sure.

Big... Sure, sure.

Right. It's a big monoculture, right?

Right, right.

Bonnie Sorak
So congregations have this unique opportunity that they control a of property. Do you know who the largest private landowner is in the world? The Catholic Church. So all these churches that own all this property, what are we going to do?

Steven 
Mm-hmm.

Probably the Catholic Church. Yeah.

Bonnie Sorak 
to show respect, to show love. When we say love thy neighbor, when we say love thy neighbor, that includes monarch butterflies and hummingbirds. So how are gonna make our community welcoming not just to people and be loving and kind to people, but how are we also gonna be? Because we don't exist, humans.

Steven 
what we're sharing, yeah. Yeah.

Bonnie Sorak 
If humans went away, everything else would be fine, but if everything else goes away, we will not be fine. So we've got to help, know, I just read an article yesterday about the bee population, which we've all been watching, just had a terrible winter, like billions of bees. So if we don't have bees, we don't have food, right? So we all have to take care of this. They're just as important in the realm of religion, like those creatures are just as important.

Steven 
Right.

Right, that interconnectedness.

Bonnie Sorak 
and people are. And we've got

Steven
Yeah.

Bonnie Sorak 
to care, we have to the same care for them that we care for each other. So it's an expression of love and how you manifest that love has to be for all creatures, not just, well it should be for each other too, but it should be for all of those creatures.

Steven 
Yeah.

Of

course. And I appreciate what you just said. And I think it ties into something you said earlier about how you're trying to reach people's hearts and minds. I we have all of this scientific facts, the data we just talked about about what stormwater is and, you know, just the cold hard facts of science. but to your point earlier, that's not what's going to move people into action. it's important. We need that knowledge. We need those data and those facts. We can understand our

actions and consequences of doing something or not doing something. But what really moves people to go do something more than facts and figures and data, it's an emotional charge. It's how we see the world and view the world from our emotional selves. And religion has such a hold on our emotional lives, for better or for worse. So, and you just talked about how do we love

each other and how do we, know, it's an emotional world. That's not about stormwater. That's about, you know, what's inside us and moves us into action. So can you talk a little bit now, it seems like a good transition to jump into some of the work that the Interfaith Partners for the Chesapeake that you're doing, how do you, you know, tell these stories where you can, you know, weave in the facts and figures that are relevant so people are making

better decisions based on good information, but you're moving them into action by storytelling. you already shared one example of imagining the Garden of Eden. know, these are, again, that's an emotional opportunity to get somebody connected to something. So can you talk a little bit more about the work? I know you've got several different programs that you do and would love to learn more about what the Interfaith Partners for the Chesapeake are doing and how you're tapping into that.

Bonnie Sorak 
Yes.

Steven 
spirit of congregations to help encourage them into healthier actions for the world.

Bonnie Sorak 
Yes, absolutely. So I would start with our basic tenet for how to get work done, right, and in a congregational framework.

it's done by community or ministry. So we work with congregations. Often we identify a single individual who's motivated and wants to do something. We affectionately refer to them lone green sheep. So here you are, you're the lone green sheep in your congregation and you want to make change. How are you going to go about doing that?

Steven
Nice

Bonnie Sorak 
One of our flagship programs is called Faithful Green Leaders Training. And so the idea is that we work with that individual to help them to build a green team or a creation care ministry. We've got lots of different combinations following our ministry, like green teams or...

They come up with all kinds of creative names, but care for creation in some way. So we help them, we take them through a leadership training program to get their ministry up and running and how to build that team, how to get people to surround you and then how to discern what action do we want to take. And that is different for every congregation. And like I said, we have a list that we call our menu for action. We work in the different municipalities where we have grant funding to work.

Steven
Sure.

Bonnie Sorak 
municipalities

to find out what their goals are as far as either they have a climate action plan or some sort of small watershed improvement plan. So we work with those municipalities to find out what their goals are and we find other partners usually.

local watershed groups that are protecting their local watershed and that have some expertise in doing in the ground work, partnering with landscape designers, master gardeners, all those, what resources are available in your community. And we've developed what we call our menu for action. And it's broken down into three categories. We have forming actions, which are basic, just education, raising awareness for your congregation. So sometimes we'll do a Bible study.

Steven 
Sure.

Bonnie Sorak 
for we went to the Catholic Church that the Pope has an encyclical called our common home and might do a study based on that. So trying to ground it within their religious faith to using their own scriptures so that it's their own, what they're used to hearing, but maybe from a different angle and working with their clergy, pastors, rabbis, imams, to help them with, you know, what are your favorite scriptures or verses that

Steven 
Sure, get that connection.

Yeah.

Bonnie Sorak 
that are in your religion that you can raise up the environment to something to care for. So those forming, that's a forming action. Then we have caring actions, which I said that's where you get dirty. It's digging in the dirt, planting the trees, planting the gardens, putting in the cisterns, the actual, like how we're gonna actually affect water quality. So helping them with those things, resourcing them, climbing them.

funding for tree plantings. We also include invasive species removal. That's another thing. So even if you don't own your building, can still go to a public and help invasive species are everywhere. We're trying to trim back the English Ivy and all those things that are killing our trees that we already have.

Steven 
Yeah, great.

Bonnie Sorak
So those are the caring actions. And then we have going forth actions, which take a lot of the forming actions, but takes it outside of the congregations because what we talked about is we want the congregation to change their behavior and make improvements, teach their congregants to make similar changes. But it is also to do that guiding force within the community to show the way and invite other people in. So if a congregation installs a cistern, we'll often

Steven 
Sure.

Bonnie Sorak
including in that grant that they'll do a rain barrel workshop. And so the watershed group will come in, we give away 10, 20 rain barrels, invite people from the neighborhood association to come and learn about, well, this is what we did. We put in the cistern and who can help two of you install the rain barrel, we'll show you how to do it and how to maintain it. So that's bringing people that won't necessarily be congregational members, they're from the community.

Steven 
Yeah.

Right.

Bonnie Sorak 
One

of my own congregation. I'll just brag on my congregation. It's called me to this congregation. We have an awesome routine. So they have worked. We are within walking distance of a middle school and high school. So we help the middle school plant a garden. We help. Right. So we help some of the students that are in the youth climate Institute. They have a chapter at their school. So what some of their kids their project was to build bat boxes.

Steven 
Please do.

Bonnie Sorak 
because we have, know, so that's an important part of our ecosystem. So they build bat boxes and we have bat boxes that they put up. we're working, we're going outside the congregational walls into the community and then building environment, growing environmentalists. Because we've got to get kids when they're young, they love to dig in the dirt. So we have work days at the congregation. We have, I've lost count, seven, eight, nine rain gardens, natal plant gardens.

Steven 
Yeah, nice. Absolutely.

Yep. Yep.

Bonnie Sorak 
We're trying to treat all the stormwater runoff that we create. Those are not working well in our broods. So we keep adding all these gardens. And we have a use every third Sunday, I think it is, where kids as young as two years old are invited to come with their parents and dig in the dirt and water the trees and plant the plants and trim the trees. so it's really been a wonderful example of how you can.

get other people involved in your work.

Steven 
Yeah, I think it's such a

Bonnie Sorak 
So, and that's part of it. So we

have a larger program that we're piloting there because we have five different congregations in the same county and they all have rain gardens, but they struggle to maintain them. They do take maintenance. So we started a of a pay it forward flash mob of gardeners. like, so we're going to have a work day here, but having to raise four kids, it's like some days you could, you you have five baseball

Steven 
Sure.

nice.

Bonnie Sorak 
games and you can't get right but then next week we have nothing going on so we have nothing going on with my kids well this other church is doing i mean i couldn't go to my congregation's work day but i can go and i'm welcome to go help this other congregation with their main garden so it's kind of a pay it forward maintenance model so we call that garden garden anyway so we do our face-overing leader training we get those teams up and running creation care industries up and running and help them discern what action are we going to take and then

Steven 
Right.

Yeah.

Bonnie Sorak 
resource them with those actions and you know on an annual basis it's like well if you accomplish that what are you going to do next and you know and so we're there for them as they you know accomplish their goals and move on to the next thing.

them to sort of what they want to do and find the resources to do that. So that's the Rural Faithful Green Leaders training. Then our other flagship program is called the One Water Partnership. And so what I've just described to you is congregations working on an individual basis. The congregation is doing this work. And what we envision is a network of congregations trying to tackle maybe bigger, like bigger issues within their community. So environmental justice and justice, you know, where there's

Steven 
Nice. Yeah.

Sure.

Bonnie Sorak 
that solution or something like that, that we need multiple congregations working together to have an influence on policy of some kind. So our advocacy efforts started in Baltimore City.

but we had a congregation, they planted all their trees, they put it in rain gardens, they pretty much greened our, we greened everything we could possibly green. Now what do we do? And so they're like, we want to turn our sights on systemic change. Like, we really, this is all great, but how do we make systemic change? When we make systemic change by influencing policy in some way. So teaching congregations that it's okay for you to advocate on behalf of God's creation, like, you know, so people are worried about the 501c3 status and all that.

Steven 
Yeah, yeah.

Yes.

Bonnie Sorak 
So teaching them that advocacy is okay that you can speak up and so the first Our first foray into advocacy was about a plastic bag fee in Baltimore City So it was actually one of our congregations have a congregation that started a letter writing campaign to write to the city council to say we think there should be a plastic bag fee on plastic bags So that was that effort ultimately we got a plastic bag fee in Baltimore City and now that is

Gone to other countries as well and I can report because I just did a screen clean up with my congregation this past Sunday There were very little plastic bags like it used to be when we did stream clean up you would find tons of plastic bags and Now there's fewer that they're not all gone, but there's way fewer of them when you drive around You don't see so many plastic bags flying in the trees and right so so you know so taking action

Steven 
Yeah, that's a... Absolutely.

Yeah.

in the trees,

Bonnie Sorak 
in

a positive benefit for us. I will say we're currently working on a bottle fee in Maryland. We're trying to get human kind for years to get a bottle fee passed. We don't have it yet.

Steven 
Yeah.

Bonnie Sorak
I wish you could see at the cleanup we did on Sunday, the number of bottles and cans and water bottles, it's just, it's overwhelming. It is overwhelming. So, you know, so this is the kind of thing. And so we, this was our first year that Bill got out of committee, which is in Maryland. That's the first step to actually like, you know, so now next year, hopefully we come back.

Steven 
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Bonnie Sorak 
Hopefully we'll get enough pressure. When the faith community speaks up to local politicians, they listen. So if the faith community is behind this, then maybe I can vote for it and maybe I won't get so much pushback. But the faith community votes for it.

Steven 
Yeah.

Yeah, well, and what I'm,

what I think I'm hearing you say as well when you're referencing a congregation, know, but this is of different faith structures. So this is, you know, so the ads that even more powerful to the policymaking if it's, you know, it's a variety of faith traditions coming together to support a particular policy initiative or

you know, particular type of direction that they want to see the community go in. It's just isolated amongst just this church or just this faith. mean, the whole, I think, power behind what you and your organization are doing is bringing these different faith tritions together to create a unified voice, even though you may pray differently and may have your unique understandings of

How you understand God or how you understand, you know, whatever the the meaning meaningful parts of your faith tradition may be There's common ground we can all stand on and then there's that that commonality when we come together Is powerful and that's what I see that that's what your organization is doing and that not only I'm imagining and please correct me if my storytelling in my brain is wrong, but this bringing

Bonnie Sorak 
Really.

Steven 
of congregations together around, you know, stormwater issues and other green issues, environmental issues, then starts to have a larger social benefit as well beyond just because you're connecting people. You're breaking down those barriers between those false barriers of why I don't believe the way you believe, so I'm going to stay over here with my group.

and you're breaking those down, which is, I think, better for the whole community beyond just making it healthier environmentally. I think you're making it a big difference in how we treat each other and socially and social issues. So am I imagining that? Did I make that up in my head or is?

Bonnie Sorak 
you just brought up,

I was like I had to write notes, so it was three different things I want to respond to you about on this. So the first was so that when we ask our participants, when we do an interfaith nature walk, so often when we do an interfaith nature walk, we'll ask people to bring a favorite scripture from their faith tradition that they would like to share with everyone, or I'll go, because sometimes people that makes people nervous, so I'll go with

Steven
Great.

Yeah.

Bonnie Sorak
a bowl with different verses from different traditions and people just pull it out and they just read it, right? And, but overall what people say at the end is, you know, so my husband says, it sounds like I'm telling a bad joke, but I'll say like, how was your event? was like, I had a Jew, a Christian, a Muslim, a Sikh and a Buddhist and they were all together. He's like, well, you, did they walk into a bar together? No, they didn't walk into a bar, but they came to an interfaith nature walk together and they shared and what they all come away saying is what they really.

Steven 
Sure sure

Bonnie Sorak 
what they valued most was meeting people of a different faith and realizing that oh we have the same value, like the value is the same, it's just, it's a different story, it's a different, it's just that. So that's the first thing, so the interfaith piece of that is what people really are craving and wanting in that connection.

Steven 
the connection.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, just packaged a little differently. Yeah.

Wonderful.

Yeah.

Bonnie Sorak 
The other one is one of our congregations that suffered terribly in the two floods that I mentioned earlier in West Baltimore. And they came to understand that they were part of the problem. They have a huge parking lot that was not being treated. And they owned 10 acres of woods that, because of the evasive emerald ash borer, most of the forest that they had had been ash trees. And so the forest basically died.

Steven 
Hmm.

Bonnie Sorak 
So that was contributing to the flood waters because we don't have a living forest, there's no water uptake. So their property was contributing to the flooding that was happening within their community, but they didn't know anything about it. So they've come to learn about this and they are just a beautiful example. We have a wonderful video about, and the first time we walked, I walked the property with the pastor in 2018, right after the second flood.

Steven 
Right, right.

Right, right.

Bonnie Sorak 
And he said, there's a pool of water on the stream that runs through the property and there's a pool of water on the stream. And he said, someday I want to baptize people in this stream. And I was with one of the watershed groups and we're looking at each other going, that runoff is really, we're never going to be able to baptize people in this stream. last October, we baptize 11 people in that stream that they've gotten to the point where they've been able to do that. So that, you know, that's a tremendous thing. But what he says is,

Steven 
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Wonderful.

Yeah.

Bonnie Sorak 
So they're having a amount of volunteer activity that's going on, just cleaning the dead wood out and make the trails and planting the pollinator meadows and just a tremendous amount of work is happening there. Green workforce development, summer camps for kids, it's just a very vibrant place. But when they put out a call to action to have volunteers show up to help them with whatever planting is happening, whatever, he said this is the most desegregated place.

Because it doesn't matter what you believe, doesn't matter what color you are, doesn't matter, right? Everyone is welcome here and everyone feels loved when they come here, they're cared for when they come here, and there's this connection happening here. It doesn't matter what your background is, right? We're all working on the same thing, we have the same goal in mind, and everyone comes away spiritually lifted by doing this work together.

Steven 
Right. Right.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, that

warms my heart. That's so beautiful. Yeah, please, yeah, yeah, please, one, yeah, absolutely.

Bonnie Sorak 
I don't know if we're coming up on time, but there's one other. So you mentioned before, okay,

so when I first started this work, the internet was relatively new, was newish, right? And so we had a project that was supposed to be in Anne Arundel County, and I had heard from somebody and they were like, oh, they're from St. Andrew by the Bay, and they wanted me to call them back. So I Googled St. Andrew by the Bay, and I'm like, okay, so I'm gonna pick it

I them and I was like, that's a weird area code. Like I don't recognize that area code. And I realized that St. Andrew by the Bay was on the San Francisco Bay. It wasn't on the Chesapeake Bay. It was all the way out of California. And it made me think, well, probably the San Francisco Bay is probably not in that much better shape than the Chesapeake Bay. And...

Steven 
Yeah.

wow. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Probably not.

Bonnie Sorak 
At the time I was housing two Chinese exchange students for a couple weeks and they were from Xinjiang Bay in China. I'm thinking what's that bay like? Like Ray it's an industrial area like what's that water quality like? So in general like I'm pretty sure there could be an interfaith part which is for the Dome of Life Bay. Dome of Life right so everywhere.

Steven 
Probably also not very healthy. Right?

Yeah.

Exactly. Exactly.

Bonnie Sorak 
everywhere could use this sort of interfaith effort of people of faith with their moral calling and convictions leading the way to show other people this is how you take care of your local watershed. This is how you can be a part of the healing, right? Our communities need healing. The other part of this is, you know, we hear all the time how people are suffering from loneliness and depression and

Well, it's really hard to feel lonely and depressed when you're planting a garden or you're planting. It is truly one of the most hopeful things you can do is to plant a tree, right? Because there's an edict within the Jewish religion where a 70-year-old man is planting a carob tree. And the passerby says, you're an old man. A carob tree doesn't grow carob. It takes 50 years. You're never going to see the carob.

Steven 
Yeah, be out in nature and...

Bonnie Sorak 
Why are you planting this tariff tree? And the answer is, he says, well, my grandfather planted them for me, so I planted them for the future. So we all have that, so that in today's, we call it the door for door, from generation to generation, we have that obligation. And so this is how we pass that on, and this is how we improve things for people.

Steven 
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, I'd love that, Bonnie. Thank you for sharing that story and thank you so much for all the stories you've shared and all the work that you're doing. I do want to be respectful of your time this morning as well. I could keep talking with you about all of this because it's so fascinating and I'm really grateful for all that you're doing and your message that you just a moment ago said that this type of interfaith work can be happening.

anywhere and it should be happening everywhere and I'm hopeful that your message gets out and if it's not happening in other communities that someone hears this and takes that spark of passion from you and starts it in their community because it's really in a world that's so divisive and easy to point what makes us different. We need these real

passionate efforts to bring us together and I'm really excited about having you on the show to share that message. So thank you. Yeah, please.

Bonnie Sorak 
So our mission is

to inspire and equip people of faith to honor, restore, and respect our shared watershed. So I would just say our Faithful Green Nevers training that I mentioned earlier, that is virtual. We hold it twice a year. The next one will be in October. Certainly our target is for people who live in the Chesapeake Bay watershed to attend that. That's the silver lining of being in a virtual training. have people come, the watershed is,

starts in Cooperstown, New York and heads all the way to Virginia, six states, 18 million people. We estimate there's 19,000 congregations in the watershed and we would hope that everyone would have an environmental committee group, team of some kind. So we welcome everyone to come. But we've had people come from other watersheds, right? We've had people from California attend Faithful Green New Year's training because they're like, how are you doing that? So we are.

Steven 
Sure. It's a big, yeah.

Wonderful.

Bonnie Sorak 
Anyone can come, we're happy to help. So if you want to get started and help your watershed, we had someone from Colorado come. He's like, how do you do this? And I go, come and see how we do this. This is something that can and should happen everywhere. And we're helping. can't provide as much support. Obviously, if you're out of the Chesapeake Bay water today, that's who we're mostly working with. But we're happy for anyone else to replicate the model to make a change in the

Steven 
Yeah.

Of course.

Wonderful. And that's a great transition then to a call to action for you in addition to coming to this training in October, which I'll make sure your website is on our show notes page so folks can come and learn about you and maybe register for that as well. But what's your call to action for folks, Bonnie, now that people have heard this episode or watched it and are hopefully feeling inspired by the amazing work that you're doing there in Chesapeake Bay?

How can people continue to support your organization or what do want people to do wherever they may be listening to or watching to this? So what's your call to action for folks?

Bonnie Sorak 
So, well, two things. You gave me the opportunity, so I'll say, obviously, we accept donations. So go to our website and donate to support this work. But I will say, you mentioned that at the head of the show, we did have a big event this past week. We featured climate scientist Katherine Hayhoe as our speaker. And I would just reiterate something that she highlighted in her talk, which I really resonated with everyone in the room.

Steven 
Yeah, please.

Bonnie Sorak 
is that people are worried, right? So we've gotten past the point, people pretty much accept that climate change is real and that it has an effect and they're worried about it. But they don't talk about it. And they specifically, our faith leaders don't necessarily talk about it. And so my call to action is,

Steven 
Yeah.

Bonnie Sorak 
Don't just keep your worry to yourself. Talk to other people about how you're worried and then find the organizations that can help you do something about it. So it's like, yeah, we can all be worried, you you're worrying, I'm a Jewish mother, like you worried, you're skilled, all that. So one of my favorite Jewish sayings is we are not.

We need to start the work. You're not responsible for finishing it, but you have to start, right? So start the work. You will feel better, right? If you start the work. So find, there's local watershed groups. It may not be an intimate partnership with a fellow in the blank near you, but there's a watershed group. There's someone planting trees. There's someone doing community gardening. They all need help. all, right? So learn about invasive species. Like we spend a lot of time planting new trees and we need to plant new trees.

Steven 
Yeah, I love that. That's great. Yeah.

Bonnie Sorak 
We have to take care of the trees that we have. So when a hundred year old tree dies, it takes a hundred years to grow a new one. So take care of the ones that you have. Learn how this is weed warrior programs and things like that. So even if you don't own property and you're an apartment dweller, you can learn to be a weed warrior and go out and take care of your local park. So we take care of the places that we love. So what you love, find out what the problem is at the place that you love and learn how to be a better steward of it. Everyone can do that. Everyone can do that.

Steven
Yeah. Yeah.

Bonnie Sorak 
So that would be my call to action is find the thing that you can do and do it.

Steven 
Brilliant, brilliant, love it. So thank you for that Bonnie. so now let's talk about hope a little bit here in the last few minutes that we've got. I love your energy. That's a brilliant call to action and I love it. But I also wanna know about what your hopes for the future are. And when we talk about hope on this show, I really...

Refer to hope, not as the pink cloud kind of emotional kind of thing, but more of the cognitive science thing that hope isn't really emotion. It's what's going on in your brain. We have hope when we have a vision for a better future and we know that there's something we can do about it. There's action, there's steps we can take, and we feel some sense of agency that I might not be able to do it all by myself, but there's something I can do.

So hope is a real cognitive place. It's not just a fuzzy, you know, fun emotion to have. So when I ask you about hope, I've got three questions for you about hope. I want to kind of learn about, you know, your hopes for the future from that cognitive perspective a little bit. And then we're going to tie in the emotions to it as well, because as we talked earlier, we don't do anything without our emotions driving us into action. So.

So the first question for you Bonnie and just kind of speak from the heart if you will don't don't think too much about the answer, but What is your? Vision for a better future and can be for you personally or professionally or for the world. What what's your vision for a better future?

Bonnie Sorak 
So I think I'll go back to our model of people coming together to take action. And that's the most hopeful thing that, and I ended our talk last week with the market need quote of, it's always a small group of committed people that change the world, right? So.

what's the thing that's bothering you the most? Find out what that is and figure out how you can affect change in whatever way that is, even if it's just standing together and pulling a weed together or that it's just, when we get together, it's the most powerful thing.

Steven 
Yeah.

So the second question, I think you've touched on it a little bit, but I want to give you a chance to expand on the answer a little bit. So your hope for a future is people coming together to take action. Why is that your vision for a better future?

Bonnie Sorak 
inaction is not going to get us anywhere. So if all stay inside and curl up and wait for somebody else to do it, it's not going to happen. everybody can do something. So, you know, get a lot of, well, I'm old, I can't dig any holes, I can't, I'm not going to do that. Well, you can pick up the phone and make a phone call to your legislature, legislature, and tell them, right, it takes 30 seconds and you have a phone.

So everyone can do something, just find out the thing that we can do, and do it.

Steven 
Perfect. Perfect. So the last question, and now we're getting into the emotional part of this. Imagine the future you just described where people are coming together, finding common ground to stand together and taking action, whatever that action may be. Imagine that's the future we're living in, that that's happening right now. How does that make you feel?

Bonnie Sorak 
Great!

That means, right, there's, there's, there's, everyone has a rain barrel or a rain garden and there's no more invasive species killing our trees and we're just all working together and it's all worked and now we have this beautiful world that's healthy and vibrant and sustains life and we can all enjoy, we can breathe clean air and not worry about what's in the water and, and, and live a freer.

be free and to enjoy it all. Instead of looking at all that's bad, you're like, wow, this is great, right? So getting to enjoy all these wonderful gifts that have been bestowed on us that we are responsible for, that we've taken control and made it better, improved it, and done away with bad stuff and only have left with the good stuff.

Steven 
I it. Thank you, Bonnie, so much for joining me on Story Sustainance. I really appreciate your time and I really am grateful for the amazing work that you're doing to make the world a better place. I'll leave you with the last words if you want to say anything before we head out today.

Bonnie Sorak 
I would just welcome people to check out our website, interfaithjesapeake.org. Tons of resources there, all free action kits, blessings, all of our trainings, and reach out if you have any questions. We're always happy to try to help people make the world a better place.

Steven 
Perfect. Well, thank you, Bonnie. I wish you all the best. All right. Bye bye.

Steven
What an incredible conversation we've had today with Bonnie Sorak. From her early days in Brooklyn to summers in the Catskills that sparked her love for nature, Bonnie's journey has taken her through parenthood, veganism, community organizing, and ultimately to her role as director of outreach at Interfaith Partners for the Chesapeake. We learned about the importance of stormwater management, how congregations can create life-sustaining landscapes, and how even the smallest actions

like planting native species, can ripple outward to create lasting change. What truly stood out to me in this episode was Bonnie's unwavering compassion and her ability to connect religious faith with environmental stewardship in such a meaningful and inclusive way. In a time when divisions feel deeper than ever and the lines between politics and religion often feel very blurred, Bonnie and the team at Interfaith Partners for the Chesapeake are offering a different path.

one of collaboration, shared values, and hope. It's encouraging, even healing, to witness how people of different faiths are coming together through their traditions to find common ground, honor creation, and protect the planet we all call home. So grateful for the work Bonnie is doing to educate congregations, foster interfaith dialogue, and inspire collective action. I want to thank Bonnie for coming on the show and for her tireless efforts to make this world a better

more sustainable place for all. To our audience, Bonnie's story is a powerful reminder that every one of us can be a steward of the earth. Whether it's starting a green team in your faith community, planting native plants in your yard, advocating for better stormwater practices in your community, or simply having a conversation that opens someone's heart to environmental justice, your actions matter.

If looking for a place to start, encourage you to visit Interfaith Partners for the Chesapeake's website to explore their inspiring programs and resources. There's so much to learn from their work and even more ways you can get involved. So thank you very much for joining me today. If you found Bonnie's story inspiring, please share this episode with your family and friends. Like and follow the show wherever you listen and leave me a comment. I love hearing from you. And don't forget to come back for the next new episode on May 6th.

where I'll be joined by a gifted musician whose work invites us to be guided by our emotions and by ecological processes, helping us build deeper, more meaningful relationships with ourselves, our communities, and the earth itself. You can catch the next episode of Stories Sustain Us on May 6th at StoriesSustainUs.com, wherever you listen to podcasts, and on YouTube. Thank you so much for being here with me today. Keep doing what you can do to make the world a better place.

Until next time, I'm Steven Schauer. Please take care of yourself and each other. Take care.