January 15th, 2025

2024 Emissions Reduction Grants

Winnipeg, Man.— MC Canada is pleased to announce Emissions Reduction Grants (ERG) totaling $18,000 to help two rural and four urban congregations reduce their carbon footprint. In 2023, nine congregations applied.

Sandy Plett, Climate Action Coordinator and member of the Sustainability Leadership Group (SLG) which oversees the process, said grants were capped at $3,000 and that all who applied received the funding.

But, not all of the available $20,000 were granted this year. “More churches should have applied,” she said. “I heard of other churches doing projects who would have been eligible but didn’t apply.”

Applicants have a generous time window of about 18 months to use their funding. Plett said the SLG approved some grants for work that had already begun or recently finished, and grantees have one year from the date of receiving their funds to submit receipts.

“Anyone at anytime can enter the cycle,” said Plett, who encourages churches to contact her to learn how their project can fit in the timeline.

The 2024 recipients include Warman and Osler Mennonite Churches (MC Sask); Langley Mennonite Fellowship (MCBC); First Mennonite Church, Waters Mennonite, and Chin Christian Church (MCEC).

The churches will use their grants to reduce carbon emissions by upgrading insulation, windows, doors, LED lighting, hot water heating, and heat pump installations. For all the congregations, the upgrades are part of a long range plan to make their facilities more energy efficient. One congregation expects to spend $135,000.

Plett said that along with the grant comes an expectation that recipients will share their experiences with others.

“The intention is that we want people to share more broadly than their church community,” said Plett. All grantees indicated plans to do so on their grant applications.

First Mennonite Church (Kitchener) co-owns a building with Shalom Healing and Worship Centre – a Tigrinya-speaking congregation that joined Mennonite Church Eastern Canada (MCEC) in 2016. The increased audience size makes communication of their project organic as these congregations move throughout the building from week to week.

The Chin Christian Church (Kitchener) is well connected with the Chin Christian Fellowship of Canada and expects to share its greening initiatives across its network.

Langley Mennonite Fellowship is embarking on a sizeable project of installing multiple heat pumps. They plan to “identify the benefits and the costs and share that information with other MCBC congregations, other Regional Churches and Mennonite Central Committee Thrift stores who all have heating units that need replacing.”

Warman Mennonite will reach out to other churches, businesses and individuals through word of mouth and social media. “We want to be leaders and encourage others to do the same for the environment. The more we can work together to make a difference, the better the world will be,” they wrote.

All the applicants indicated their project expenses will exceed the amount granted, and will need to raise additional funds. Some congregations have already set aside money for their projects. The youth group at Osler Mennonite church has started Green Fund to help offset its project costs. First Mennonite (Waterloo) will help finance their project from the sale of a 50% share of its building value to a congregation that will share their facility.

Plett said the SLG is eager to hear from any congregation with plans to green their buildings, even if they don’t intend to apply for the ERG grant.

“We want to share inspirational stories to encourage everyone to consider reducing their emissions, whether it’s [via] your regional climate working group, Canadian Mennonite [magazine], your regional church, etc.” said Plett, noting that there are 13 churches who have already installed solar panels.

One behalf of the SLG, Plett is planning to convene an online ‘solar panel panel’ early in 2025 for congregations with solar experience to share their learning journey with interested churches.

The deadline for the next round of applications is the end of September 2025. Successful applicants will be notified in November 2025.

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Photo: First Mennonite Church in Kitchener will be upgrading its building in collaboration with its new co-owner, Shalom Healing and Worship Centre, and with help from MC Canada’s Emissions Reduction Grant. – photo: Google Street View