Saint Anthony Catholic High School Reports on Compost and Garden

by Earth Angels 

Introduction

St. Anthony Catholic High School Earth Angels Environmental Club has partnered with Climate Reality Corps, San Antonio Composting Project, and Gardopia Gardens to create our high school's first compost beds and a school garden. The club is sponsored by Mrs. Jacqulyne Esteves (lead) and Ms. Ava Liebentritt who are both full time teachers at the St. Anthony High School Campus. We are proud to announce that as of March 2026, the garden and compost are fully functional and are integrated into our school lives. Service is a core mission here at St. Anthony, and students are encouraged to give back to their community every single day. The mission of service is at the center of our club and guides each project we decide to take part in.

According to the Environmental Protections Agency, it is estimated that of the U.S methane emissions, 17% of the emissions come directly from landfill waste.1 While our students cannot reform all carbon emissions from buildings nor automobiles, we felt that eliminating landfill waste could be a direct initiative for our community. Based on our projected data we can save almost 800lbs of waste each school year from the landfill. 1 ton of dry waste roughy produces 143 Lbs of methane. This initiative will not only halt methane emissions from our school but will educate students on how to compost. This The compost project was granted to us through Darshana Gupte, Chair of the San Antonio Climate Reality Chapter, and we were assisted by Christiana Rodgers from the San Antonio Composting Project. In December, students assembled four outdoor composting beds near the school garden. The leadership members of the club then performed a wasted audit to gauge the knowledge of composting among current students. 

See results below:

Students are now composting after each lunch and composting the waste that the cafeteria staff would normally throw away. On average, the cafeteria staff is composting 20 lbs a week of unused products.

We hope to use the compost in our school garden for future crops. This closed loop cycle will ensure the future of our garden, the health of students, and a growing connection with nature.

Financial Gain

Composting at our school can provide us with many financial benefits, including providing source of fertile soil that leads to less trash being thrown out, reducing the number of dumpsters that we need and in turn the cost of STA’s facilities. To elaborate, having fertile soil is necessary for the overall health of our garden. This leads to healthier foods that we can use in school lunches, decreasing the costs of purchasing ingredients, which is the main goal of this garden. Additionally, composting allows us to dispose of food scraps other than in our dumpsters. Without the several pounds of food each day, we may be able to rent fewer dumpsters, which would save us a lot of money. Also, besides the many positive environmental aspects, having a garden is also something that would attract many people to our school, which would subsequently increase our enrollment and our financial gain.

The Garden

The growth of the garden will bring a green atmosphere to SACHS. We could have a cooler and more beautiful area instead of a blank space just with grass. By growing the garden, we brought an experience about a sustainable non-profit business from SACHS to everybody. We apply what we learn in real life. This project is a symbol of environmental sustainability in the STA community.

Having a garden adds to the St. Anthony Catholic High School experience, allowing us to be better stewards of the Earth. It ensures that we can give back to the environment in the way that it gives to us. By giving us easy ways to waste and reuse food scraps, we can be more efficient with the resources that we use. This wouldn’t be possible without our generous donors, Climate Reality Project, and Gardopia Gardens. As a Catholic high school, we believe that God’s creation is to be protected. Therefore, it is our duty to do the most we can to ensure that our environment is being cared for. Our solution is to develop a bountiful garden that continues the longevity of our mission as a catholic community.

Educational advantages

One of the more common things that some schools lack is teaching valuable life skills. St. Anthony Catholic High School is able to provide at least three of these through our garden. The first educational value aligns with one of our core values. Service. The SACHS garden was brought into reality by our own students. We have put our time and effort into this garden, just as our school teaches us to always do. Another educational advantage has to do with our students having an interest in the environment they live in. If our students are more educated about the environment, they will be able to inform their peers. An educated student body is a more active student body who will want to create change in their community. The final educational  advantage that our garden supplies us with is the beauty of nature. As a Catholic school, we want our students to recognize the beauty of God’s creations and this garden is a prime example of that. Our SACHS garden provides us with so many benefits as shown in this report which is why it means so much to us, our students, and those we work with.

Saint Anthony Catholic High School has been featured in Telemundo: https://www.telemundosanantonio.com/video/noticias/local/pequenas-lombrices-una-gran-mision-jovenes-transforman-residuos-en-vida/2493433/

1 https://www.epa.gov/lmop/basic-information-about-landfill-gas

“Make Mothers’ Day Great Again”

 Sr. Martha Ann Kirk and Rev. Julie Brenton Rowe invite you sign and to spread the peace petition from their Palestinian and Israeli friends, “The Mother’s Call”  https://www.womenwagepeace.org.il.   Learn about Mother’s Day Home - juliebrentonrowe.   In May 2025, they were on a peace-building trip in the Holy Land which you can read about “Hopeful Pilgrim” and see Sr. Martha Ann with Yael Deckelbaum who wrote the song. 

“Make Mothers’ Day Great Again”
Rev. Dr. Julie Brenton Rowe

In 1870, decades before Woodrow Wilson instituted the current Mothers’ Day holiday in 1914, peace advocate Julie Ward Howe issued a proclamation calling for a day to be set aside for women to gather to strategize about seeking peace and ending war:    

“Arise, all women who have hearts, whether your baptism be that of water or of tears!..

Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy, and patience. We, women of one country, will be too tender of those of another country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs…

As men have often forsaken the plow and the anvil at the summons of war, let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of counsel with one another whereby  the great human family can live in peace….I earnestly ask that a general congress of women without limit of nationality may be appointed and held ..to promote the alliance of the different nationalities, the amicable settlement of international questions, the great and general interests of peace.” Paraphrased from Julia Ward Howe’s Mothers Peace Day Proclamation

Few women are at the table when men let slip the dogs of war. But they are often the ones to pick up the pieces of the lives shattered by it.

An Israeli woman peace advocate Gila Sviersky used to say: 

“Why do they give the peace process to generals? All they know how to do is fight.  They should give it to mothers. They know how to negotiate.”

What if we did? What if we placed more women at the seats of power in the peace processes instead of endlessly funding the generals who never miss an opportunity to turn plowshares into spears?

Studies show that women’s participation in peace processes increases the probability of peace agreements lasting 2  years by 20% and lasting 15 years by 35%. Just ask Leymah Gbowee of Liberia or the Northern Ireland Women’s Coalition party in Northern Ireland.  They were instrumental in stopping the worst of the violence in their countries.  

In 2014, in response to yet another bloodbath in Gaza, Israeli women formed a group called Women Wage Peace, calling for an end to the violence and return to negotiations, this time with the novel idea of involving more women. They grew, and in 2022, partnered with the Palestinian peace group Women of the Sun to issue the Mothers’ Call, which basically said let’s stop killing one another’s children and work instead for peace and equality for both Israelis and Palestinians. In 2023, they celebrated their work in a festive day in Jerusalem and at the Dead Sea. Unfortunately, it was October 4, 2023. 

Three days later, one of their founders, long-time Israeli peace activist Vivian Silver, was killed in her home near Gaza by Hamas. Over the next 2 years, almost thirty Women of the Sun peace activists were killed in Gaza. Despite the complexities, they remain committed to working together, but it is a tough go. 

Leaders from the partnership have been honored for their work by the BBC and Time Magazine and have been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. The partnership was awarded a grant in 2023 before October 7 for its program Women Building Bridges. Unfortunately, it was partially funded by USAID. So much for US support for peace programs. 

More than 50,000 people have signed the Mothers’ Call. Add your signature and join the movement at https://www.womenwagepeace.org.il. 

It’s not that all women see peacemaking the same way or that they have magic answers. But their peace work has tended to emphasize non-violence, reaching across divides, and upholding equal human dignity. Much of their work improves conditions on the ground: healing trauma; building cooperative networks; and improving schools, social programs, and health care. These are not just feminine values. They are human values. 

Some say non-violence is naïve. But how much more naïve is it to believe that bombing children and devastating cities – again - will do anything other than create traumatized children who will go on to perpetuate the cycle? How much more naïve to believe that people living under a brutal military occupation will somehow stop struggling for freedom with whatever they have? Freeing people from occupation and oppression and insisting on justice and equal human dignity are the only ways to long-term peace. 

In the year 2000, the United Nations passed Resolution 1325, which called for, among other things, the inclusion of more women in formal peace processes. Twenty-five years later and still you won’t find many women in pictures of the executive Board of Peace or any of the leadership teams of the current warring nations. 

Leaders like US Secretary of the “Department of War” Pete “raining down death and destruction” Hegseth have made sure of that. He “proudly” ended the US Women, Security, and Peace Initiative, saying that it “overburdens our commanders and troops – distracting from our core task – war-fighting.”  

If “war-fighting” is our core task as humanity, it’s news to Hegseth’s hero Jesus.

It’s time for regime change at the peace tables.    

Rev. Dr. Julie Brenton Rowe just finished her Doctor of Ministry degree in Public Theology at Austin Presbyterian Seminary with a focus on women and peacemaking in Israel and Palestine. She is the author of “Why Peace and Prayers are Not Enough: A Primer on Justice and Peace in Palestine and Israel.”

Julie Ward Howe’s Mothers’ Peace Day Proclamation of 1870:

Arise, all women who have hearts, whether your baptism be that of water or of tears! Say firmly: “We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies, our husbands shall not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause.

Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience. We women of one country will be too tender of those of another country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.

From the bosom of the devastated earth a voice goes up with our own. It says, “Disarm, disarm! The sword is not the balance of justice.” Blood does not wipe out dishonor nor violence indicate possession.

As men have often forsaken the plow and the anvil at the summons of war, let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of counsel. Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead. Let them then solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means whereby the great human family can live in peace, each learning after his own time, the sacred impress, not of Caesar, but of God.

In the name of womanhood and of humanity, I earnestly ask that a general congress of women without limit of nationality may be appointed and held at some place deemed most convenient and at the earliest period consistent with its objects, to promote the alliance of the different nationalities, the amicable settlement of international questions, the great and general interests of peace.

To Divert from Fossil Fuel, an Urgent Message on Laudato Si' Anniversary and Jubilee Year of Saint Francis

Saint Bonaventure held that, through universal reconciliation with every creature, Saint Francis in some way returned to the state of original innocence. This is a far cry from our situation today, where sin is manifest in all its destructive power in wars, the various forms of violence and abuse, the abandonment of the most vulnerable, and attacks on nature. (Laudato Si' 66)

On May 24 2026, we will be celebrating the 11th Anniversary of Laudato Si' encyclical, written by Pope Francis as an invitation to all people of goodwill to ecological conversion.  This year is also designated by Pope Leo XIV as the Jubilee Year of Saint Francis starting from January 10, 2026 - January 10, 2027.  It is the 800th death anniversary of the Saint, a peace and dialogue advocate, who died in October 3, 1226.

Given the Laudato Si' Anniversary, it is important to highlight the works that the Laudato Si' Movement is doing which includes the formation of people around the world to care for Creation through Laudato Si' Animator program (www.laudatosianimators.org). Currently, there are 20,000 animators who are working tirelessly to incarnate the love of God through caring for our Common Home through individual, community and systemic actions.

The Laudato Si' Animator program started in April. It will end on June.17.  Laudato Si' Movement continues to train 6,000 participants from all over the world across Spanish, English, French, Italian, and Portuguese language groups. There will be a new group of people who will rise to their society to speak up and take actions to care for creation.  

It is time to be grateful to God for the basic necessities that we receive such water to drink and air to breathe.  These are basic and yet so critically important.  If we cease to receive any of these, we can die. A few minutes without air can cause death while a few days without water can also cause death.  The purpose of Laudato Si' Movement is to raise awareness of our responsibility and invite the Catholic communities in particular (i.e. the movement is also open to people of goodwill) to take care of our resources and address the call for ecological conversion.  It is a gift that God has given to us.  It is best to put measures to protect, conserve, and provide provision to allow its growth and restoration.  

How do we morally shift from fossil fuel to sustainable energy and alternatives?  How do we slow down and not demand for more so that our earth is able to rest?

Refusing to be part of the Unhealthy System and Shifting to Healthy Habits

Climate advocacy is important in ensuring that more people can get involved in climate actions, and resting away from fossil-fuel-business as usual.  The impact of climate crisis is enormous that everyone's part is necessary.  If my neighbor and the communities are not changing their habits, even if I am changing, the practices of my neighbor and my communities remain part of my responsibility and can affect my habits (e.g. styrofoam for take out in restaurants can cause an impairment on ecological person's practices, if a community is using conventional energy power source than renewable, then it contributes to fossil fuel proliferation).  If any of the society's way of business or operations are using unsustainable practices and remain fossil-fuel-run-business as usual, their practices are still part of one's practice.  How does one refuse to be part of that system?  

Can you start to patronize good practices, and be connected to a community that support such, or educate your community?

The Throw Away Mentality

We need to advocate for sustainable practices and keep on encouraging people to take actions or change habits.  Unless people understand the reason why they have to do things, the people and communities will continue to participate in this throw away culture where we use plastics and disposable products easily.  The United States or modern culture is used to not fixing things, given the quality of the products that do not last after certain number of years.  People in this capitalist world throw things away when things look bad and look discolored or even slightly disfigured. Similar to people, when there is something disagreeable, people dismiss people  without conversation or fixing the relationships.  Countries go to war because human lives are no longer treated as valuable but disposable.

The Impact of the Unrested Land, Unconverted Habits and the Fossil-Fuel Business As Usual 

The fossil fuel and the attitude of the people unwilling to change are largely harming the geological state of our planet.  A lot of the products heavily rely on fossil fuel and also plastic-based.  This creates the climate injustice which eventually affects all creatures including human beings most specifically the vulnerable.  For the countries that produce so much carbon footprint like United States, it has more responsibility to mitigate its carbon footprint on the planet as it only impacts our Common Home that belongs to all.  The Global North owes its action to the Global South who has the most vulnerable parts of the society.

The fracking used by oil and gas industries requires about 1.5 million gallons to 16 gallons depending on the land situation.  While the oil and gas industries can also use about millions of gallons of water every day.  An example of the impact of oil and gas industries in basic necessities of people is the water crisis in Corpus Christi where the refineries need about 20 billion gallons of fresh water to stay in operation where in analogy a data center uses about 100 million gallons of water per year.  The city refines about 5% of the nation's oil. Corpus Christi also contributes to about 2.5 million barrels a day which is half of US crude oil exports.  According to reports, March 2026 is the busiest and the "Crude oil exports exceeded 2.4 million barrels per day in March 2026, one of the highest monthly levels seen in this market."  The Iran war is changing the oil and gas market conditions in Corpus Christi.  

What does it mean for the natural resources of the city? The oil, gas and plastic industries are consuming more than 50% of the water in the area. The city is experiencing severe drought having only about 8.8% full of the water normal level for Lake Corpus Christi and 6.9% full in Choke Canyon Reservoir.

The Jubilee is the Year of God’s favor

How do we balance or be relieved from the operation of the industries with the need to maintain an healthy eco system supporting creation that includes lives of people, and the need of the vulnerable part of creation?  The human lives depends on these basic natural resources.  Not to mention the pollution that is also attached to these oil and gas industries, known to cause illnesses and diseases.  The need of the nature to rest from labor is inevitable.  This is the value of jubilee.  It is a time to release the nature from enslavement and the people from endless work. This being a Jubilee year of Saint Francis, it is a call to contemplate on what are we willing to renounce pondering on Saint Francis who renounced wealth and embraced poverty to be able to fully live the Gospel.  This simplicity of life renewed the church.

The Jubilee Year in Leviticus 25:8-55 teaches us that for us who have something, let it be our work to share and provide for those who have less or nothing and for those who have worked for you or has given you the fruits of your years.  It is about God’s favor on His people.  Jesus Christ himself declared God’s favor in Luke 4: 16-18 and Isaiah 16:1.  He proclaimed that the Lord’s favor is here (Lk 4:19).  

This is the call to all to be God’s favor for His people. 

The Invitation to Divert from Fossil Fuel and to Challenge Our Habits

This is an invitation to do one action to Care for Creation, challenge yourself to do it for a week during the Laudato Si' Week May 17-24 and celebrate your work in caring for creation.   It can be not driving your car for a usual activity but taking a walk or public transport.  It can be staying away from food that is wrapped or packaged in plastics or writing the business establishment to change their practices and share your reason with the uninformed.  Plastic is made of oil and thus lessening the demand for plastic packaging helps to also reduce the demand for fossil fuel.  There are a lot of possibilities.  The Laudato Si' Movement and the Care for Creation advocates also urge you to ask your parish priest to celebrate Mass for Creation during this week or have a prayer service.  

Send photos of your acts of Care for Creation during the Laudato Si' Week through: jpic.office@amormeus.org.

Other Upcoming Dates by Laudato Si' Movement:

• Circle Training: 
• May 13th 7pm EST- Zoom Registration
• May 20th 12pm EST- Zoom Registration
• Laudato Si Week: May 17-24
• Creation Care Commissioning on May 23rd 

  Vancouver 5:00 AM | New York 8:00 AM | London 1:00 PM | Nairobi 4:00 PM | New Delhi 5:30 PM | Manila 8:00 PM | Sydney 10:00 PM

  Join a global moment of prayer, blessing, and mission with hundreds around the world. Come with your efforts, your community, your initiatives—and receive a special blessing to carry them further.

  Register here
  

• September 1 - October 4: Season of Creation website is being updated here - the theme for this year is Living Water
• Join the Laudato Si' Texas Chapter (anytime), send us an email texas@lsmchapter.org

Relevant Topics:

Invitation to Ecological Conversion - US Catholics

https://laudatosimovement.org/resources/

Global South Church Manifesto

Global South Catholic Church Manifesto on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels

Santa Marta Colombia is Ending the Fossil Fuel Era

Santa Marta Conference calls for a Just Transition beyond Fossil Fuels

American Water Crisis is Here

Years of Drought in Major Energy Port of Texas and Refinery Hub

Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty

Power to Choose your Energy

Dr. Katherine Hayhoe talks about fighting Climate Change on Tedtalk

Hundreds of Thousands Waiting for Mercy

The recipients of DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) renewals are experiencing significant delays.

Do you want to be an instrument of peace to people?  You can give them the security of being able to feed themselves, their families and be a contributing member of this society.  Having any delays to justice is an injustice in itself.  The delays can only cause anxiety, fears and furthermore the reality that people will get deported as the DACA recipients will no longer have any legal document that can justify that they are still allowed to stay in United States.

For people who are comfortable having their jobs, shelter, able to attend school, and apply for other opportunities under the sun, it might be easy to disregard those who do not have that legal status, those who are waiting for legal status, those who are holding DACA papers.  How can people feel safe when at anytime, the people are still waiting for their papers to be approved?  These were used to be children who came with their families and were not able to apply for the residency for whatever reason.  

How many DACA renewals are delayed?  From what we know there are millions of lives who rely on the DACA renewals so that they can continue to remain the way things are for their stay,  and livelihood in United States while being able to support their families.

To support the call for the USCIS to work on the renewal backlogs:

https://actionnetwork.org/letters/send-a-letter-to-dhs-secretary-mullin-and-uscis-director-edlow-end-daca-delays-now/?source=email.friend&

More:

https://chuygarcia.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/chuygarcia.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/daca-delays-letter-final.pdf

https://www.uscis.gov/DACA

Multi-faith Letter Opposing Fossil Fuel Immunity

There is a bill that is being lobbied in the house and senate led by Harriet Hageman and Ted Cruz that will give legal immunity to oil and gas industries from any damages caused by their emissions.  Why people need to be aware of the Legal Immunity being introduced in Congress where  the fossil fuel companies will not be liable for any climate damages that are being done by the fossil fuel industries?

The cost of the climate crisis is staggering. About $160 - $250 Billions of dollars of property are lost in an instant.  Families are losing homes because of the wild fires, storms, floods, and natural disasters. An example of which is the wildfire in California in 2024 that could not be contained due to drought, dry weather and harsh winds.  

The natural disasters can be catastrophic to the families especially those who do not have any protection or savings.  By an instant, you can loose everything and the companies who are responsible for the damages will not be accountable for any damages.  There is no opportunity for any communities to seek justice in court.  The polluter pays laws will not matter.  The taxpayers continue to pay for the damages that are heavily imposed upon the unlimited damages done by the fossil fuel industries spewing dirty oil on the ground, water and pollution in the air.

Sign the multi-faith letter to Congress to stop this legislation:

https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/multi-faith-letter-opposing-fossil-fuel-immunity?source=direct_link&

https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/tell-congress-not-to-let-polluters-off-the-hook-for-climate-damage?source=direct_link&

https://5calls.org/issue/big-oil-climate-crisis-immunity/

More on this:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/apr/23/republicans-big-oil-climate-lawsuits