Help Save the Riverton Environment Centre

Written By: - Date published: 2:12 pm, February 9th, 2017 - 11 comments
Categories: Environment, sustainability - Tags: , , ,

The South Coast Environment Society has been running the Riverton Environment Centre for 21 years. The Centre has been in its current location for 15 years and now has one month to secure the funding to buy the building.

Robyn Guyton explains the situation,

Further video at the ODT.

Donations can be made on the Pledge Me page here.

What the Riverton Environment Centre does,

Sale of products:
• Environmentally friendly products (cleaning products, gardening supplies)
• Kings Seeds
• Fair Trade products, including teas and coffee
• Riverton Organic Food Co-op produce including fruit and vegetables; dairy products; chicken and meat; dried fruit and nuts; beans, lentils and seeds; flours and grains (all organic and GE free, as local as possible)

Displays on:
• Water quality
• Fishing and regulations
• Native plants
• Pest control
• Energy
• Natural health
• Natural cleaners
• Fair Trade
• Resource Management Act
• Other educational resources on sustainable living topics

Base for the following:
Estuary Care Society
Aparima Pestbusters
Seed Saving project information and distribution of seeds
Open Orchard project
Education programmes (adults and children)

The Centre has an extensive library for society members along with a wood fire and comfortable chairs. There is and a children’s activity area that is free to use.

A computer and internet access is available for the public for researching environmental and natural health information.

You can learn more about the Centre here and on Facebook.

Our vision is a sustainable and resilient Aotearoa New Zealand where there are good leaders, resources, systems and examples available to assist and support all types of people to adopt sustainable lifestyles and care for and about their environment.

The Open Orchard Project

 

 

11 comments on “Help Save the Riverton Environment Centre ”

  1. weka 1

    Gratuitous link to the short film about the Guyton’s Food Forest in Riverton (20 mins, well worth a watch). 178,000 views so far.

  2. Ad 2

    We love this place, have been there several times, and want to support it.

    It would wholly suck if it folded.

    What do you need? Funding?

    In cash, or kind? What is needed?

  3. greywarshark 3

    Got to keep this Southland crowd going – what a great bunch of environmentalists and goers. And strongly involved are the Gorgeous Guytons. Very invigorating just hearing about them so am definitely giving them a donation.

  4. greywarshark 4

    After donating, even $10 on Pledge me, it all helps as can be afforded by the giver,
    this from E F Schumacher on his eonomics for people to know is sobering, and we are now trying to protect ourselves against the impacts of industrialisation as well as making feeble attempts to slow or halt it:

    The next four or five years [after c.1973] are likely to see more industrial production, taking the world as a whole, than all of mankind accomplished up to 1945. In other words, quite recently – so recently that most of us have hardly yet become conscious of it – there has been a unique quantitative jump in industrial production.

  5. Thanks, everyone. Asking for help has been a new and slightly awkward thing for us to do, but the response from people has been more than heart-warming. We’ve been getting donations through the Pledge Me campaign; 62 pledgers so far, as well as contributions from people visiting the Centre in order to give towards the cost of purchasing the lovely building. It’s kinda humbling and invigorating at the same time. If we can get over the line and meet the purchase cost, we’ll be ecstatic and energised and all fired-up to do more of what we do with our community, local and regional and believing even more in the value and power of grass roots action 🙂

  6. mauī 6

    I have to say this shop looks really cool. Library, information centre, shop all in one. Plus tons of other stuff going by the blurb. What a community asset! Wishing all the best for the fundraising.

  7. Morrissey 7

    Robert, is the local Riverton newspaper supportive? And what about the Southland Times?

    • Morrissey – yes, they have featured our campaign, with charming photos and have been supportive for a long time now with all of the projects we do; the Harvest Festival, Open Orchard project, annual fruit tree sale, etc. As well, Get Growing, the on-line “sister” publication to NZ Gardener, ran a piece on our efforts to buy our building, as did RadioLive on their Facebook page, as well as giving me room to speak about it on Sunday morning’s Tony Murrell Garden Show. Happen Films, the crew that made the movie that weka linked to here, also have a link on their page, plus there are others who have run promotion for us; it’s been very encouraging to see so much generous support for what is a grassroots movement. Local business too, has offered support to give us surety. Even Pledge Me asked if they could feature our campaign in their own system! The Standard, of course, very kindly offered to do this post and for that we are very grateful and since weka’s post went up there have been several pledgers whose nom de plumes I recognise 🙂
      Thanks so much to those TSers.