Looking for a Few Good Citizens!
Sustainable Tompkins has been working with several partners for the past 18 months to explore the feasibility of creating a central gathering place — The Sustainability Center — to showcase our community’s progress in developing more sustainable ways to work and live, and to connect citizen groups, students, and green businesses.
The Steering Committee has hired a coordinator for The Sustainability Center, and our initial team of five advisors has grown to eight. But now that we are moving toward opening the Center’s doors in early 2013, we’d like to add some key skills to our team. We are now recruiting 3 new members for our Steering Committee, and are looking for local people who could fill one of the following seats:
- Marketing / Fundraising / Public Relations experience
- Green Business (Owner / Manager)
- Member of the general public (with a commitment to engaging our community in sustainability)
We seek to diversify our Steering Committee to ensure that The Sustainability Center and its programming are developed with voices from people of varying cultures and socio-economic backgrounds. We believe that by celebrating and recognizing the work that takes place across our entire community, more people will feel a part of the sustainability movement and it will provide a means of breaking down barriers and crossing cultural divides.
Our mission: The Sustainability Center will create, in the center of the community, a physical space from which to promote community-wide sustainability efforts in Tompkins County, through public engagement, service learning, and partnership with local green businesses, non-profits, and leaders in the field.
The Sustainability Center will appeal to four major audiences: students wishing to become engaged in sustainability projects, internships and work-study jobs; businesses and organizations that can benefit from the promotion of their green goods and services, as well as the assistance of local students; residents who want to learn more about community sustainability efforts and become involved; and visitors drawn to Tompkins County to experience local sustainability solutions for global problems. There will be emphasis on activities and programs that simultaneously advance the three pillars of sustainability: economic prosperity, social equity, and environmental stewardship and how they are interrelated. The Center will be staffed by a program coordinator, work-study students and volunteers, and may provide a small retail space for local green enterprises in the future. It will demonstrate current efforts and document progress over time as Ithaca and Tompkins County strive to be the most sustainable community of its size in North America.
Interested in serving our local community? Please submit a short bio and describe the networks and skills you would bring to The Sustainability Center’s Steering Committee. Contact: Jackie Mouillesseaux-Grube, Coordinator, The Sustainability Center, (607) 227-7329, Jackie@sustainabilitycentertc.org
Current members of the Steering Committee are:
Ed Marx, Commissioner of Planning, Tompkins County
Gay Nicholson, President, Sustainable Tompkins
Marian Brown, Special Assistant to the Provost, Ithaca College
Gary Stewart, Director of Community Relations, Cornell University
Gary Ferguson, Executive Director, Downtown Ithaca Alliance
Phyllisa DeSarno, Deputy Director for Economic Development, City of Ithaca
In Shik Lee, former SUNY GREENS NY Program Coordinator, Adjunct Professor, Sustainability Council, TC3
Dee Gamble, NYSERDA Energy $mart Communities Coordinator, Cornell Cooperative Extension of Tompkins County
