Insert at Casa Maria

Seeds planted on fertile ground take root. This is what happened with the seed of the AIR Air Insulation Resource system that was planted at Casa Maria, Catholic Worker House of Hospitality this past winter. Neal, a graduate of Marquette University Engineering School, took the idea of the AIR system and ran with it at one of the Casa Maria houses, the one he and other workers of Casa Maria live in. With a group of volunteers he built inserts for most of the windows in the house he lives in. The windows are not the most aesthetic, and the measurements of energy savings were not clearly taken, but it worked and the house saved money on its energy bill.

The idea of the AIR, just like the idea of vermicomposting, composting with worms, is not new but is an urban application of a known but not well system.

If only Neal’s school of Marquette University can learn as he did from the wisdom of the past and realize that “teaching war” is not the way to create a peaceful society. Two ideas we presented to Marquette University this year, a garden of resistance, and debate and dialog on the moral issue of teaching war at a Catholic University, were both rejected by the powers that be at Marquette.

At least one of their students was listening, and while now a full-time engineer, is still a worker at Casa Maria house of hospitality and and implementer of the AIR system of saving energy. I have been told and know that change starts with individuals before it affects institutions. Let us hope that the seed of peacemaking but not teaching war takes hold as well as the idea of using air to insulate did at one of the Casa Maria houses. It just takes one person to plant the seeds of change.

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