In many respects, it’s an incubator for ideas.
The APPLE Sustainability Center in Nevada City will be the gathering place for people and groups in the community to share ideas on how to live green, said center Executive Director Mali Dyck and Nevada City Mayor Reinette Senum. Among its many uses, education will be at the top, as workshops are being forecasted for the newly renovated building at 412 Commercial St.
After hosting a preliminary opening for the center last week, both Dyck and Senum were asked one question: What will the APPLE Center do when it’s fully functional? Here’s what they said:
Dyck: Already we’re getting approached by people … It’s amazing the people who walk in with ideas, or questions. A young group of business people who meet once a month, called the Exchange, who I’ve never heard of, are going to have their October meeting here. Basically, they get together and talk about their businesses and learn about something that’s happening in the community. And that’s totally sustainability. It’s not green building, or tanning, or seed picking, but it’s connections and getting people to talk to each other and help each other with their businesses.
People bring us ideas and we facilitate the meeting of the people who are interested in that. Whether it’s local economy or in water issues or food issues or anything. But the economy is a good part of it. I’m glad people are walking in, seeing us as a resource for business.
Senum: One of the things that I realize is that, because our future is so unpredictable, all we need to do … all we need, is a space for us to come together, and as we go, figure it out and re-invent ourselves and retool and re-educate ourselves. Because in all honesty, there is nobody who can really, really predict exactly where we’re going to go and the rate that we’re going to go.
But what we can do, and the community should have, is a space for us to come together and not be divided and collectively figure it out. And that’s literally what this is. It’s just a place to come together and be the resource that the community needs and wants. And it’s up to the community ultimately. We don’t really drive it, it’s really the community driving it. We’re just providing the space, the energy and the infrastructure to do it.
Dyck: And the facilitation of connecting the dots. You know, one person here has this idea, another person comes in with the (same) idea … let’s look at who else is interested in that idea, so we’re not duplicating efforts.
Senum: Which is happening a lot in this community.
Editor’s note: This story originally appeared in The Union.
