Cultivating the Common Good: University of Dayton's Flyer Farm

Pope Leo XIV's message for the 2026 World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation is to actively care for creation and work towards peace. The University of Dayton’s Flyer Farm puts these Catholic environmental and social teachings into practice by sustainably growing fresh produce to feed its local community.

The University of Dayton's Flyer Farm was highlighted in an article by the National Catholic Reporter (NCR). UD’s Flyer Farm is a three-acre urban agriculture and composting project that reconnects the Marianist school with its 19th-century agrarian roots while actively addressing modern community needs. Managed by students and staff on the site of former tennis courts, the farm features extensive garden beds, fruit trees, chickens, beehives, and an enclosed composting system that processes a ton of campus food waste every day. Rather than keeping the harvest on campus, the University of Dayton partners with a local nonprofit, Miami Valley Meals, donating thousands of pounds of fresh produce to feed those facing food insecurity in the Dayton area. Ultimately, the initiative serves as a hands-on learning laboratory for circular sustainability and a practical embodiment of Catholic environmental teachings and the Marianist commitment to the common good.

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World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation

The theme of the 11th World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation, 2026 is: “They shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks” (Isaiah 2:4). In his message for this year’s World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation, Pope Leo XIV calls us to renew our hearts, seek peace, and to care for creation. In doing so, we will become collaborators of God’s work and turn desert into garden, division into communion, and violence into peace.

Read Pope Leo XIV’s message for the World Day of Prayer for Creation, September 1, 2026