{"id":18654,"date":"2025-10-29T12:36:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-29T12:36:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/18654\/"},"modified":"2025-10-29T12:36:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-29T12:36:08","slug":"longmonts-bethlehem-lutheran-church-boasts-green-efforts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/18654\/","title":{"rendered":"Longmont’s Bethlehem Lutheran Church boasts green efforts"},"content":{"rendered":"

As its members look to the future, Bethlehem Lutheran Church is going green.<\/p>\n

For the past few years, the church at 1000 15th Ave. in Longmont has been finding ways to be more environmentally friendly. These include adding a pollinator garden that requires less water and letting Boulder County nonprofit Growing Gardens<\/a> harvest produce on the property.<\/p>\n

As the growing season ends, a new project at the church begins: the installation of 164 solar panels. The panels were laid on the church\u2019s roof over the past couple of weeks.<\/p>\n

The congregation raised over $70,000 to support the project, which has a price tag of around $200,000, according to church property chair Glenn Summers. Additional funding came from a Boulder County grant<\/a> and expected government rebates.<\/p>\n

\u201cI couldn\u2019t be more proud of our congregation and the support that they\u2019ve given,\u201d Summers said.<\/p>\n

Dave Hooley, chair of the solar team, explained that the solar panels on his own home in Louisville inspired him to bring that technology to his church. For Hooley, the inclusion of solar panels will make the building more suitable for the generations ahead.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to prep ourselves for the future,\u201d Hooley said. \u201cIt is also the right thing to be doing as far as stewardship of what we have.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bethlehem Lutheran Church was established in 1901 and will celebrate its 125th anniversary next year. The church\u2019s pastor, Katie Chullino, said there are around 130 people at a typical Sunday service.\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not only Bethlehem Lutheran members who will benefit from the new panels, either. The building hosts a preschool program and Scout troop meetings.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are people here pretty much all day, every day,\u201d Chullino said.<\/p>\n

This year, the Growing Gardens farm at the church celebrated its fourth season of bringing fresh vegetables to county residents. At nearly an acre, the site is the second Growing Gardens farm location in Longmont. The other is hosted by the Longmont YMCA<\/a> at 950 Lashley St.
\n\"VolunteerVolunteer Allison Frost picks cherry tomatoes on Oct. 22. Bethlehem Lutheran Church is finding new ways to connect with the local environmentalist community, from installing solar panels to letting Growing Gardens farm onsite. (Photo by Cliff Grassmick\/Staff Photographer)\n<\/p>\n

The path that led to a thriving farm at Bethlehem Lutheran Church<\/a> began when the Lashley Street farm lost acreage due to expanding YMCA programs. Another location for Longmont\u2019s Growing Gardens farm was needed, and Bethlehem Lutheran stepped up to provide it.<\/p>\n

Tim Villard, Food Project manager at Growing Gardens, remembered feeling \u201csuper thrilled\u201d to get the news that the church was interested in becoming a farm site.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really wanted to make up that space,\u201d said Villard, who shared that some volunteer farmers are members of the Bethlehem Lutheran congregation. \u201cThis is a beautiful relationship. Once we started digging and growing here, (we found out) the soil is really great.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last week, Growing Gardens held the last harvest day of the year at the Bethlehem Lutheran farm. Volunteers collected a few heads of lettuce that had persisted through the fall weather. Other crops this year included peppers, squash, green beans and tomatoes.<\/p>\n

According to Villa, the two Longmont community farm locations together produced over 13,000 pounds of vegetables this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis year was a really big year,\u201d Villa said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As its members look to the future, Bethlehem Lutheran Church is going green. For the past few years,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18655,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[153,155,154,1675,1676,7250,1677,241,182,6832,139,8270],"class_list":{"0":"post-18654","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-bethlehem","8":"tag-bethlehem","9":"tag-bethlehem-headlines","10":"tag-bethlehem-news","11":"tag-boulder-county","12":"tag-colorado","13":"tag-colorado-news","14":"tag-front-range","15":"tag-latest-headlines","16":"tag-local-news","17":"tag-longmont","18":"tag-news","19":"tag-nonprofits"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18654","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18654"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18654\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18655"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}