RICHMOND, Ind. (AP) - Although Cope Environmental Center offers acres of outdoor educational space, its indoor learning space has been pretty small.
With Cope center serving more than 13,000 people during the past year, the time has come to develop something other than trees and wildflowers.
Cope center is going to build a new education and administration building. Plans for the new building and the fundraising “Campaign for a Sustainable Future” were unveiled Tuesday evening during a reception at the Gennett Mansion in Richmond, the Palladium-Item reports (https://pinews.co/RLns4v).
Cope Environmental Center was founded by Jim and Helen Cope and Francis Parks, who made conservation a way of life and dedicated themselves to teaching others the importance of sustainability.
“We could think of no better day to have this event than Earth Day because Cope is really all about Mother Earth, honoring Mother Earth, sustaining Mother Earth, teaching about Mother Earth and learning from Mother Earth,” said Cope center board chairman Alan Spears as he welcomed guests.
“The new building will be absolutely stunning,” promised Carol McKey, who is serving as campaign co-chair with Len Clark.
McKey said $720,000 of the $1 million goal already has been raised.
The lead donors for the project are Wayne Stidham and his late wife, Frances Stidham, Paul and Pat Lingle, and Ed and Caroline Cope.
In addition to serving as the Cope center’s education and administration building, the new building also will be the welcome center for the Indiana Bicentennial Legacy Conservation Area.
“It will be a huge attraction for the entire state,” McKey said. “It will be a marvelous venue for meetings and conferences.”
Alison Zajdel has been Cope center’s executive director for nearly two years. She took the helm just as the campaign was quietly getting off the ground. “It’s a good time to be working at Cope,” she said.
Zajdel is excited the new building will be built to be environmentally friendly.
She and architect Kevin McCurdy of LWC Incorporated of Richmond hope to have it registered as a Living Building Challenge structure, a building that exceeds LEED standards in sustainability.
McCurdy said such a building must produce its own energy and use its own waste.
“It could exist on its own where it is,” he said. “I brought the Living Building Challenge to them. … If you really want to be an example and to live as lightly as possible on the earth.”
He is learning through the process and hopes the building’s construction also will educate the community.
The challenge speaks to more than McCurdy’s professional interests. In 1999, he worked at Cope center when Jim and Helen Cope were still living on the property.
McCurdy expects his favorite room in the new building to be the classroom, which will bring aspects of the property indoors by including a forest canopy on the ceiling.
Donor Wayne Stidham, 97, helped unveil the architectural images of the new building during the reception. He said the building is much needed.
“It’s no longer a little thing anymore,” Stidham said. “What I hope is that I can see the building done before I’m gone.
“Jim Cope was a very dear friend of mine. I’d walk through the conifers with him. Jim collected them from all over the world,” he said. “I’ve always had a real good feeling about (Cope center) because of my friendship with Jim. The people out there are really dedicated.”
In addition to being a donor to the building campaign, Stidham is a longtime donor to Cope center. He and others like him are now part of a new Cope center supporting group, the Evergreen Society, announced Tuesday.
Mary Jones, new initiative, program and development coordinator, said the Evergreen Society includes those who have named Cope in their estate plans or other planned giving options. The group was named because evergreens were so important to Jim and Helen Cope.
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Information from: Palladium-Item, https://www.pal-item.com
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