{"id":1258,"date":"2019-02-12T11:56:44","date_gmt":"2019-02-12T17:56:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jimschwab.com\/Hablarbooks\/staging\/1734\/?p=1258"},"modified":"2019-02-12T11:56:44","modified_gmt":"2019-02-12T17:56:44","slug":"gratitude-on-parade-6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jimschwab.com\/Hablarbooks\/gratitude-on-parade-6\/","title":{"rendered":"Gratitude on Parade #6"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

GRATITUDE ON PARADE
#gratitudeonparade<\/a>
Michael J. Stanch, who likes to describe himself humorously as a “recovering attorney,” has returned with his family to his home state of Minnesota after 24 years in Illinois. He has been an invaluable asset to a program that has produced dozens of energy efficiency retrofit projects for Chicago-area churches. He operated his own energy firm, Stanch Lighting and Energy<\/a>, but more importantly for this tribute, was a central figure in the success of the Environmental Concerns Working Group<\/a> of the Metropolitan Chicago Synod<\/a> of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America<\/a> (ELCA). From 1989-2010, in its formative period, I chaired this group, but Mike came along at a critical time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I had already worked out a zero-interest revolving loan fund scheme for the Working Group with Job Ebeneze<\/a>r, who was once responsible for ELCA environmental stewardship and facilitated a $5,000 grant to launch the fund in 1994. We grew the fund in various ways, but Mike identified one major step for us around 2001, when we applied for a grant from the Illinois Clean Energy Community Foundation<\/a>, funded by Commonwealth Edison<\/a> as part of an agreement with the State of Illinois. We won a large grant that quadrupled our lending resources. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But that was just the beginning for Mike, who also conducted\nalmost all the energy audits of churches that applied for loans, and then\nhelped us and the congregations plan the implementation of the agreed projects.\nIn some cases, we lowered costs through sweat equity; in others, supplemental\ngrants and ComEd rebates stretched what we could do. Mike was always central to\nworking out the details. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We will miss him, and we will have to replace his faithful\nservices somehow. But there is no question that more than two dozen Lutheran\ncongregations in metropolitan Chicago have benefited, some with multiple\nprojects over the years. Toward the end, Mike was helping us extend our reach\ninto solar energy as well. He has been an essential figure in this enterprise\nfor about 20 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Posted on Facebook 2\/4\/2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

GRATITUDE ON PARADE
#gratitudeonparade<\/a>
It’s been a few busy days since I posted one of these tributes, and I was hoping to have a photo, but it has not worked out. Nonetheless, Gary Lamb<\/a>, now 81, a retired farmer in Chelsea, Iowa, deserves this. More than 30 years ago, when I was a hard-working graduate student trying to compile material and stories for his first book, Gary was a farm activist and fervent supporter of Tom Harkin<\/a>, who first got elected to the U.S. Senate in 1984. Gary hosted a rally for Harkin on his farm, and going there was one of the early dates with Jean Schwab<\/a>, ten months before we were later married in Omaha.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gary was also doing all in his power to help\nconnect me to people in the farm community he felt I needed to know, speaking\nglowingly of my work in various forums, and later arranging for Harkin to write\na foreword to Raising Less Corn and More Hell. Our friendship continued well\nafter the book was published, which contained a vivid interview with Gary. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He also had a wonderful sense of humor. On one occasion in the early 1990s, I drove out to Des Moines for an Iowa Farmers Union<\/a> convention when Gary was IFU president. I brought our 10-year-old daughter, Jessica, who proceeded to ask why the cows on farms along I-80 couldn’t do their business farther away from the highway so it wouldn’t smell so bad when she opened the car window. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gary\nlooked down, smiled broadly, and said, “I’ll see what we can do about\nthat.” Gary is doing less well these days, but I sure hope that humor has\nnot escaped him. Thanks, Gary, for all you did to help make what I did\npossible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Posted on Facebook 2\/8\/2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

GRATITUDE ON PARADE#gratitudeonparadeMichael J. Stanch, who likes to describe himself humorously as a “recovering attorney,” has returned with his family to his home state of Minnesota after 24 years in Illinois. He has been an invaluable asset to a program that has produced dozens of energy efficiency retrofit projects for Chicago-area churches. He operated his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1258","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jimschwab.com\/Hablarbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1258","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jimschwab.com\/Hablarbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jimschwab.com\/Hablarbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jimschwab.com\/Hablarbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jimschwab.com\/Hablarbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1258"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.jimschwab.com\/Hablarbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1258\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1260,"href":"https:\/\/www.jimschwab.com\/Hablarbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1258\/revisions\/1260"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jimschwab.com\/Hablarbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jimschwab.com\/Hablarbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jimschwab.com\/Hablarbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}