Green Ribbon - Support of Farm Families

Support of Farm Families

In 1998, Margaret Bruce, a Pastoral Associate at St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church in North Dakota, sought a way to support farm families and came up with the idea of a green ribbon and a card that read "We care through prayer." Around the same time, the National Catholic Rural Life Conference (NCRLC) began receiving emergency calls from farm families in stress and saw that the situation was getting worse across the country. In November 1998, NCRLC launched the Green Ribbon Campaign at their 75th anniversary meeting. They developed and began to disseminate rural crisis packets to help parishes deal with the growing rural crisis.


In the UK, in November 2008, a Manchester-based support group for people living with or being affected by the HIV-virus; launched a campaign called Body Positive North West, using a green ribbon as their symbol. The aim is to raise awareness of 60 second HIV testing and encourage more people to get themselves screened for HIV, as research suggests that over a third of all HIV-infected people in Britain, are themselves unaware of this.

Green Ribbons are also used in the US to show support for medical marijuana, as well as many other medical drugs in the country.

Read more about this topic:  Green Ribbon

Famous quotes containing the words support of, support, farm and/or families:

    An ordinary man will work every day for a year at shoveling dirt to support his body, or a family of bodies; but he is an extraordinary man who will work a whole day in a year for the support of his soul. Even the priests, men of God, so called, for the most part confess that they work for the support of the body.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    Criticism is a study by which men grow important and formidable at very small expense. The power of invention has been conferred by nature upon few, and the labour of learning those sciences which may, by mere labour, be obtained, is too great to be willingly endured; but every man can exert some judgment as he has upon the works of others; and he whom nature has made weak, and idleness keeps ignorant, may yet support his vanity by the name of critic.
    Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)

    Wind goes from farm to farm in wave on wave,
    But carries no cry of what is hoped to be.
    There may be little or much beyond the grave,
    But the strong are saying nothing until they see.
    Robert Frost (1874–1963)

    The man who promised to reinforce American families is now eager to pull the plug on Big Bird and Barney.
    Leslie Harris, U.S. political activist. As quoted in Newsweek magazine, p. 23 (December 19, 1994)