By Kayla Raynak
On Tuesday, April 22, Students and community members gathered at the Macoskey Center to celebrate its 35th birthday.
The Macoskey Center opened in 1990 on Earth Day. Throughout the years, they have been teaching individuals ways to care for and support the earth while inspiring many.
This year the Macoskey Center partnered with West Penn Energy Fund to have the opportunity to bring more projects and events to life.
“We have partnered with the West Penn Energy Fund who is a non-profit organization that funds a variety of different sustainability projects specifically that are focused on energy efficiency or solar renewable energy or induction cooking too,” Samantha (Sami) Bortz Director of The Macoskey Center said.
Every year the Macoskey Center holds Earth Fest to celebrate Earth Day as well as its birthday.
Earth Fest is a day full of events and educational activities to teach individuals about sustainability.
This year the Macoskey Center received a grant from The West Penn Energy Fund, which was used for an energy audit, and energy efficiency updates to the center.
The grant was $22,500.
With the money from the grant, the center was also able to turn Earth-Fest into a whole month of different events helped put on by The West Penn Energy Fund.
“It’s been great, they were really supportive of all of our ideas of trying to connect not only the SRU community but the broader community to concepts around energy efficiency, climate change, solar, anything like that. So, it’s been really great to partner with them and hear about the ideas that they’re passionate about and they want to be communicating to the broader community,” Bortz said.
On Earth Day the Macoskey Center put together various activities to celebrate 35 years.
Not only was the center celebrating its birthday, but The West Penn Energy Fund was also celebrating 25 years.
This event is held to celebrate the Macoskey Center’s accomplishments throughout the years and to help inspire individuals to take care of the earth. They also hope to inspire and get students involved.
Joel Morrison from West Penn Energy Fund spoke about partnering with the Macoskey Center and this experience.
“When you go in there you see young faces and we hope to inspire young students, educate those young students, it’s their future, it can be a very good career as well,” Morrison said.
During the celebration the center hosted short tours, had a fossil dig for children, and used up-cycled paper beads for individuals to make keychains, bracelets and jewelry.
“Just getting awareness out there, it looks like it’s fairly well attended. For this stuff to get sticking power it takes years, this is not something that happens overnight,” Morrison said.
At the event individuals could also walk around to different tables to learn new information such as a West Penn Energy Fund’s table. Students could learn more about who they are and what they do.
“Passion, I want the students to see the passion among their colleagues, I want them to be inspired, to get more involved. I mean the building is just a building it’s really what you do in that building that’s important, and that was Macoskeys dream to spread that out,” Morrison said.
The center also partnered with Louis Christensen, a Mechanical Engineering professor at SRU and his heat transfer course.
All of Christensen’s students created heat transfer projects specific to the Macoskey Center to focus on energy efficiency.
Individuals had the opportunity to speak to those students about the results of their projects.
“I think I’m most excited for…honestly just meeting people, meeting people who are coming out today to celebrate Earth Day with us, to see where their passion points kind of align within sustainability, what attracts them to sustainability, what they’re most interested in,” Bortz said.
Earth-Month events have been happening all throughout the month, including speakers, cooking classes, bird walks, scavenger hunts and more.
Throughout the years the center has provided many individuals and students with new opportunities and experience that can benefit their future.
“The more you can make it real to people and how it impacts their lives, the more sticking power that has,” Morrison said.
Students still have the opportunity to attend one of the events hosted by the Macoksey Center this month called The Green Kitchen Plant-Based Diets Soups and Sandwiches. This gives students the opportunity to explore the benefits of a plant-rich diet.
Students can RSVP for the event on the Macoskey Center’s Linktree. If individuals are interested in future events they call follow the center on Instagram, Facebook and CORE.
The center works to teach and inspire many individuals about sustainable practices.
The Macoskey Center and The West Penn Energy Fund plan to continue to work together in the future.
“Even if you make little changes, you can have a big impact,” Morrison said.
