2024 Earth Care Award Winners

 Three Eco-Justice Award Winners Honored

at Presbyterians for Earth Care Annual Virtual Gathering

 

Presbyterians for Earth Care (PEC) recognized two amazing individuals and one stellar congregation for their exceptional environmental achievements at their January 2025 Annual Virtual Gathering. The William Gibson Eco-Justice Award was presented to Dan Dieterich of Stevens Point, WI for his long history of being a good steward of the earth both at his church and in leadership roles with several non-profit organizations. Gabrielle Parrulli, a young eco-entrepreneur and owner of a refillary store in New Mexico, received the Emerging Earth Care Leader Award for a young adult.  Trinity Presbyterian Church in Hendersonville, NC was  awarded the Restoring Creation Award for all of their work with sustainable practices, eco-education, and environmental outreach.

 

Dan Dieterich, William Gibson Eco-Justice Award

Dan Dieterich, an environmental activist with a long and steady dedication to earth care, focuses on confronting the climate crisis. A member of Frame Memorial Presbyterian Church in Stevens Point, Wisconsin, Dan is an ordained deacon and elder and a retired English professor from the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. He has offered sermons on environmental topics, made community climate presentations, and his words inspire the understanding of humankind’s sacred relationship with God’s creation. 

In 2001, Dan founded the church’s Green Team, which is now the church’s largest committee. The church became a PC(USA) Earth Care Congregation in 2010. He and other Green Team members tend five raised-bed gardens on church property and deliver the produce from those beds to local food pantries. The Green Team also purchases and plants trees in local school forests and engages in other environmental actions. Dan and Diane, his spouse, are leaders of the Green Team, organizing many educational events, including movies, speakers, and panels.

A member of many environmental nonprofits, Dan has a long history of being a good steward of the earth, leading Central WI’s native plant group, and has a leadership role in the Central Wisconsin Citizens Climate Lobby (CCL) group as well as being CCL’s Wisconsin Co-Coordinator.

 

Gabrielle Parrulli, Emerging Earth Care Leader Award

Gabrielle Parrulli believes that God put us on this earth to care for it and not to damage it. She says it is time to clean up our act and clean up the earth. Four years ago, Gabrielle opened the first version of her refilliary out of an airstream trailer when she was a junior in high school. She says that refillaries are one of the most honest types of stores; most of them are independent and female-owned, offering accessible, affordable, and available products.

Gabrielle speaks to church, civic, and school groups to tell them how to best care for the earth and the importance of eliminating plastics - especially single-use plastics - and using environmentally safe products for cleaning and personal use.

Now Gabrielle has a refilliary store, called Fillin’ Funky. All products are eco-friendly, and there is no plastic. Customers take their own containers and fill them with eco-friendly products like detergent, dish soap, shampoo, conditioner, sunscreen, and more. Fillin’ Funky is plastic and waste-free, and Gabrielle hopes it will help encourage residents to clean up and green the environmental landscape in Albuquerque and New Mexico.

Trinity Presbyterian Church, Restoring Creation Award

Trinity Presbyterian in Hendersonville, North Carolina has been heavily involved in sustainability and environmental awareness since 2018 when three members researched solar panels for the church. By May 2019 the first 85 panels were installed. Five months later, more panels were installed for a total of 129. With additional improvements in energy efficiency, the panels now provide 90% of the church’s energy needs. Committee members led classes at other churches and prepared a detailed handbook about their solar process to share. 

Every year since 2017, Trinity has celebrated the Season of Creation on Sundays from September 1 to October 4. The “celebration” includes special worship services, nature-based liturgical art, four stations of creation in the woods behind the church, tree planting and an annual picnic. 

The Earth Caring Ministry was commissioned in 2021, and the church became an Earth Care Congregation in 2023. In addition to solar energy, Trinity engages in other sustainable practices such as reusing 50-year old pavers for a walking path, and provides education at classes, in the newsletter and blog, and at a “Sustain Ability Begins at Home” table set up in the narthex of the church every Sunday.