Welcome to the blog of St Joseph Workers in Queens, NY! This blog will give a glimpse of what a year of service with the St Joseph Worker Program can look like AND call us all into action alongside the community of St Joseph Workers!

This week is Laudato Si’ Week, a celebration of the 5th anniversary of Laudato Si’, the Pope’s encyclical on the environment and our common home. Sisters of St Joseph have been actively engaging in actions regarding the environment, specifically related to single-use plastics (You can find more resources and presentations here). St Joseph Workers are partners in advocacy with the Sisters of St Joseph and SJWs have also been invited to take action! Join us!

Here are some suggested actions:

1. We need to address single-use plastics through our personal choices to avoid them but also by letting the manufacturers and local vendors know of our concern. Please take these two actions.

• Tell Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, and Nestlé to stop using single-use plastic packaging. For the second year running, Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, and Nestlé were the three biggest single-use plastic polluters in 484 cleanups in 50+ countries across six continents in September 2019. If we don’t hold them accountable now, experts predict that there will be more plastic than fish in the oceans by 2050.
• Click here to send letters to Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, and Nestlé. We encourage you to add your own words about why this is important to you, perhaps mentioning Laudato Si’ Week and the call to preserve our common home. You will receive an acknowledgment that your letter was received and an invitation to share it on social media. Please do.
• Sending local store managers a letter asking them to phase out single-use plastics. Click here to find more information and a sample letter.

2. Take action by asking your congressional representative to co-sponsor the HR 3969, Save Our Seas Act 2.0. Click here to read our information sheet. Take action by making a personal pledge to take “one more step” as we “Journey Farther.”

• Click here to virtually sign the pledge
• Click here to download a pledge sign, print, and take a selfie with it.
• Share your pledge on social media using the #LaudatoSiWeek and #LaudatoSi5 hashtags.

You can learn more about the spectrum of actions that Sisters of St Joseph and St Joseph Workers are taking as part of the pledge here. You can also view more about the actions of the St Joseph Workers placed at the Sisters of St Joseph of Brentwood’s Justice, Peace, and Integrity of Creation Office here.

Acting together creates more impact on important issues of social justice. Become a St Joseph Worker and become part of a large community working towards social change!