Guns to Gardens

There are many ways you can get involved with Guns To Gardens Boulder

There is no Event

Spread the Word
Help grow our movement and spread the word about Guns to Gardens! Share our posts and follow us @GunsToGardensBoulder (Facebook and Instagram)

Volunteer at an Event
Please email g2gboulder@cuccboulder.org if you are interested in volunteering. Volunteers under the age of 18 must have their parent/guardian sign a permission slip. A variety of roles are needed!

Donate
Guns to Gardens Boulder only runs with the gifts of generous individuals, churches, and organizations. We invite you to make a gift online here.

Own an Unwanted Gun?
See our upcoming events here and learn more about how it works here.

Volunteer on Our Chop Saw Team
Volunteers are needed to learn how to safely dismantle unwanted firearms using our chop saws. Email us to learn more.

Get Your Community or Organization Involved
We would love to talk with your church or group about our work. Let’s connect! Email address@gmail.com.

Guns to Gardens Boulder Is Part of the National Guns to Gardens Movement

In response to a mass shooting at our local grocery store, where 10 people were killed on March 22nd, 2021, we resolved to find a way to move beyond thoughts and prayers. We were shocked, scared and grieving and that quickly turned to anger and outrage. We were told nothing would change. So through our tears and discernment we decided to take action. The biblical text demands calls to peace and dismantling the construct and systems that lead to violence. As it says in the Book of Isaiah, “God shall judge between the nations and shall decide for many peoples; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.”

On Sunday June 13th, 2021 from 1-4 p.m. Community United Church of Christ in collaboration with RawTools and other partners, we hosted our first county-wide gun buyback event with the support of the Boulder Police Department and in conjunction with the Colorado Attorney General’s Office. We offered a chance for the proper and safe disposal of unwanted firearms of all kinds. And we hope to reduce the number of gun deaths and injuries locally as we transform our trauma individually and collectively.

Guns to Gardens

 Boulder, Co

Guns to Gardens Boulder Is Part of the National Guns to Gardens Movement

There are many ways you can get involved with Guns To Gardens Boulder

forgea

There is no Event

Spread the Word
Help grow our movement and spread the word about Guns to Gardens! Share our posts and follow us @GunsToGardensBoulder (Facebook and Instagram)

Volunteer at an Event
Please email g2gboulder@cuccboulder.org if you are interested in volunteering. Volunteers under the age of 18 must have their parent/guardian sign a permission slip. A variety of roles are needed!

Donate
Guns to Gardens Boulder only runs with the gifts of generous individuals, churches, and organizations. We invite you to make a gift online here.

Own an Unwanted Gun
See our upcoming events here and learn more about how it works here.

Volunteer on Our Chop Saw Team
Volunteers are needed to learn how to safely dismantle unwanted firearms using our chop saws. Email us to learn more.

Get Your Community or Organization Involved
We would love to talk with your church or group about our work. Let’s connect!

Email: g2gboulder@cuccboulder.org

Guns to Gardens Boulder is a project of the Community of the United Church of Christ. Your donations are graciously accepted and very much appreciated. The Donate button on this page will take you to the CUCC donations page.

Thank you for your investment in reducing gun violence in Boulder! Your gift is tax-deductible.

Opinion: Holding Onto Hope

Community Church of Christ

By The Rev. Nicole M. Lamarche

Originally written for and published by The Boulder Daily Camera, April 3, 2021.

It was a Sunday morning tradition. My daughter and I would stop by the King Soopers before we made our way to worship at Community UCC on Table Mesa Drive. She would negotiate for a second cake pop at Starbucks while I ordered a medium roast coffee and picked up some flowers for the altar. We almost always used the west entrance so I could begin in the bright and beautifully arranged floral department. Right to the left, next to the newspaper stand was the clearance section for discounted arrangements and old bouquets, my favorite spot in the whole store. I feel nostalgia for the time not long ago, when I could go grocery shopping and not have to give myself a pep talk. The new and constant reminder of mass violence  and loss is strange and on some days hard to take. And my body still wants to bring me there, like the instinct to call a friend that can no longer answer the phone. How do we live with this presence of an absence? With this hole in our hearts and in our neighborhood?

Many of us had dreamed that life after the pandemic would be a chance for us to be different, individually and collectively. We all spoke of a new normal as we cleaned out our closets and planted gardens. And we talked about rethinking healthcare tied to employment,  and rethinking the fact that essential workers make essentially nothing. But then this happened and it felt like the old normal. One of the few silver linings from the pandemic and at home learning was the loss of constant worry about our daughter being killed in a school shooting. But now this. How do we still have hope?

In the version of the Easter story found in the Gospel of Mark, we read that the women who went looking for Jesus in the tomb eventually fled the scene, “for terror and amazement had seized them.” After witnessing murder, having their dreams dashed and their hearts broken, they managed to also feel a sense of amazement.  And I think many of us feel this way right now too. Even in our tears and new fears, we give thanks for the ways that this tragedy has invited us to circle up in our parks, in the dark, in churches and on curbsides, to ugly cry and howl and sing. We are amazed at the love that has been released and the generosity that continues to pour out. We are amazed at the good that is in us.

I am finding that on some days I have to reroute and avoid my old pattern because the Memorial Wall is now a pilgrimage site, a crime scene, a wound, a barrier, a traffic jam, a sacred place. And I wonder if hope can be like that too. What if holding onto hope is like rerouting so we can keep going? I don’t think this had to happen for us to grow deeper like this. But I do think that part of the Easter story for me, especially this year, is about how we human beings can refuse to let the worst thing be the final thing. We can insist, like the women on Easter morning, even in our terror and amazement, that violence won’t be the end of this story…

Rev. Nicole M. Lamarche is pastor of Boulder’s Community United Church of Christ