Stockton UMC's Annual Earth Day Celebration

Stockton United Methodist Church celebrated this 56^th Earth Day by hosting its 13^th annual Electronics and Appliances Recycling Drive, Saturday,

April 18, 8:30-11:30 a.m. in its parking lot at the intersection of Highways MO-32 and MO-J. They served 123 households that chilly, sunny morning, as they transferred tons of electronics and appliances and other recyclables from personal vehicles into Meredith Recycling’s 70-ft. tractor trailer, roll off dumpster, and TV trailer.

The Earth Day 2026 theme, “Our Power, Our Planet,” diverges from its 56-year history to focus on the power ‘we the people’ use every day—and how that power can either protect the planet or quietly damage it. We the people have the power to consistently make decisions and take actions to protect our planet.

The SUMC Go Green Team celebrates the hundreds of residents who took action to bring electronics, appliances, batteries, cords, printer cartridges, EPS foam, writing instruments and other items to these annual recycling drives the past 13 years.

The past 55 Earth Days, from 1970 to 2025, focused on public awareness of human behaviors and practices that severely degrade Earth’s health (industrial pollution, smog, toxic waste, greenhouse gas emissions; air, water, and plastic pollution, etc.) and actions people can take to restore the environment. This annual April 22 global event became the largest secular observance on planet Earth. More than a billion people celebrate it every year by doing something to change human behavior or provoke government policy changes to protect planet Earth.

Earth Day 2026 focuses on where the power to protect and restore the Earth truly exists, not just with leaders, governments, corporations, or other large systems, but with individuals. Simultaneously, it continues the vital tradition of raising awareness about environmental protection, sustainability, the health of our planet, and urges individuals to take political action to protect it. Power to protect our planet is distributed across millions of small decisions each of us makes each day, shaping demand, behavior, and long-term impact. Almost every decision each person makes impacts the health of our planet.

The Council of Bishops of the United Methodist Church says it this way, “We must begin the work of renewing creation by being renewed in our own hearts and minds. We cannot help the world until we change our way of being in it.” There is not just one thing we can do to restore the damage done to God’s good creation. Disciples of Jesus Christ must choose a lifestyle that reflects our dedication by God to shamar—to keep watch over, to guard, to protect, to have charge of planet Earth, God’s good creation.