During its first five years of existence, the loosely organized but highly active Sustainable Worthington has compiled a list of completed or ongoing projects that surprises even its founders.
An abbreviated list of projects that Sustainable Worthington has either fully or partially been responsible for includes the indoor farmers market, PreCycle Day, Worthington community gardens, restoration of the Moses Wright nature area, the Worthington dog park, the demonstration rain garden and new bike racks.
According to the 30-plus people who attended one of its rare meetings Nov. 30, more projects ranging from promoting the local economy to encouraging lifelong learning seem to be gathering steam.
So what is Sustainable Worthington, how did it get started, and what accounts for its success?
It was founded in November 2006 by Lisa Staggenborg, her husband, Fred Yaeger, and Lucie Pollard. Staggenborg and Pollard had attended a meeting of the more global Simply Living organization and decided to try to pull together a more local forum to promote a broadly defined agenda of “green” issues.
Staggenborg said she was stunned that 30 people had turned out for the first meeting. They introduced themselves, talked about what projects they wanted to see accomplished and agreed to meet in December to get started.
“We were blown away by the interest,” she said.
From the beginning, the group strictly was grassroots, with no formal regulations, no officers, no dues.
What it has are 280 members who communicate mainly through the Sustainable Worthington website and email system. Anyone who wants to participate could receive information about the organization or about any of its many subgroups.
It is the people that have made the difference, that have gotten things going, and that will continue to evolve, Staggenborg said.
“You have to have a driver or the project doesn’t work,” she said.
One of the driving interests of the original group was in finding a grocery store to move into central Worthington. Jubilee recently had closed, and people were no longer able to walk or bike to buy food.
Though much effort has been focused on finding a grocer to move to Worthington, none has.
What happened, though, was the indoor farmers market, now held on Saturday mornings during the winter. Like the summer market, it is successful.
The Olde Worthington Business Association is the sponsor of the farmers markets, but Sustainable Worthington members logged more than 1,000 hours to get it started.
A friends group continues to help do the legwork for the indoor market, which currently is without a market master.
“That was the perfect project to get started with,” Staggenborg said.
PreCycle Day was the brainchild of Yaeger. The annual, curbside free exchange of reusable items won the 2001 good-neighbor award from the Solid Waste Authority of Central Ohio.
The community garden opened in 2010 at the Worthington community center. It continues to maintain a waiting list of residents who want to join their neighbors to grow food.
A subgroup interested in the urban forest continues to work to restore the Moses Wright nature area in East Granville Park, and a demonstration rain garden at the Worthington Public Service complex was planted in 2008.
Sustainable Worthington also was the starting point of Worthington Organized Off-leash Friends (WOOF), another grassroots organization that was the impetus in the creation of Worthington’s first dog park, which is set to open next spring on Godown Road.
Yaeger also has worked with the city to get new bike racks built, and he continues to work on developing bike paths.
He also encouraged the city to add sustainable criteria to building standards. He attends public meetings to remind city officials to keep green standards in mind when planning public improvements.
The city thus far has been receptive. It is part of the reason the Sustainable Worthington projects have been successful.
“We are very lucky to live here in Worthington because it really is possible to get things done in this city,” Staggenborg said.
Some communities are too large to work with, and some are too small to have enough people to follow through, she said.
“Scale matters,” Staggenborg said. “Worthington is in a sweet spot in the middle. There are a lot of things right here.”
Because the organization avoids traditional long-term planning, the future is up to its members’ interests and energies.
“Even if Sustainable Worthington faded into the woodwork tomorrow, we’ve done good,” Staggenborg said.
The rest is here:
Sustainable Worthington says people are secret to its success
