Regenerative WELRP Initiative

BACKGROUND

WELRP proposes an infrastructure project to renovate and revitalize its building, its equipment, and its footprint on satellite sites that it owns or leases (i.e., community gardens, public radio tower) to better and more fully serve its community. The project will be planned utilizing a locally-driven resilience planning process that seeks to identify and incorporate the social, ecological, and technical needs of the community, not only in the present but also recognizing a future of changing weather and other systems. This project develops critical community infrastructure in the context of the recent Future Weather.

We envision a revitalized hub that will include meeting, office and event space that will support expanded use by community members, community groups or by the City of Callaway for a nominal cost and use scope that is supported by City of Callaway.

DESCRIPTION

This project will include robust community input and a holistic building assessment that identifies priority issues and opportunities that includes energy and utilities, communications and data, health and safety, emergency and disaster preparedness, and being a good neighbor. Community input and building assessments will also help WELRP and partners develop a plan for building function priorities (for example, creating a larger room for bigger events out of several smaller rooms; or installing a community kitchen). Working together, the WELRP and UMN team will creatively leverage community assets and ideas for resilient, sustainable, and adaptable infrastructure projects to lay the groundwork for competitive proposals that could be eligible for a wide range of funding opportunities

TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE PROJECT PARTNERS at UMN

The UMN Center for Sustainable Building Research’s (CSBR) role is to “transform the built environment in ways that provide for the ecological, economic, and social needs of the present without compromising those of the future,” and to build eco-literacy in the broader community. CSBR creates viable pathways capable of transforming the built environment in the state and region to be a powerful model of regenerative design and development for deep sustainability on a global stage.

The Empowering Small Minnesota Communities (ESMC) program is a community-centered collaboration with the University of Minnesota to support small communities in becoming well-positioned to benefit from federal, state, and local infrastructure investments. University researchers and program staff partner with communities to envision compelling proposal ideas for public and private funding programs. ESMC intends to partner, collaborate, and amplify existing work and programs. The main aim of the program is to make University teams and resources available to support community-identified work and dovetail with other programs. ESMC sees its main role as a support in the conceptualization, research, and development stage of community-identified ideas and projects.

For more information, please contact: Margaret Rousu, Executive Director: maggie@welrp.org, 218-375-2600.