Star Library Program paints Star Garden

This week the Star library summer reading program stormed the Star Garden eager to paint the all of the flowers and vegetables in the beds. Anne started the day with a garden tour and the kids helped pick some flower arrangements for the tables. I counted over 80 people including parents with over 30 kids painting.Most painted on paper, but on imaginative young lad created this diptych of cucumber and plastic plate. Genius, I think. Total outside the box thinking. That's what you get with these kids that read instead of zoning out in front of the idiot box all day. OK, I can't back that up but I will tell you this: The town of Star is lucky to have a librarian as dedicated as Ms. Claudia McIntosh. She and Anne put together a great activity for these kids free of charge.

It was hot, but the kids had a great time. Thanks to Anne and Ms. Claudia for providing enriching opportunities for our community's kids.

Erin Brockovich speaking in Winston Salem.

Say the name Erin Brockovich and you think strong, tough, stubborn and sexy. Erin is all that and definitely more. She thrives on being the voice for those who don’t know how to yell. She is a rebel. She is a fighter. She is a mother. She is an activist. AND, she is coming to Winston-Salem to inspire us to take action!

For details on the plight of the Yadkin River, and to register for the talk click here. It's free and sure to be thought provoking and inspiring.

This event is brought to you by Yadkin Riverkeeper, along with Presenting Sponsor Wake Forest University. The event will be held from 7 to 8 p.m. at WFU Scales Fine Arts Center, Brendle Recital Hall. Free and open to the public. There is limited seating and reservations are required.

Register now!

BALLE High: Back and ready to rumble

BALLE High: Back and ready to rumble

The CPNC and STARworks crew just got back from the BALLE conference held in Charleston SC. For those of you unfamiliar with the organization, BALLE stands for Business Alliance for Local Living Economies. BALLE is a network of more than 80 community networks with more than 21,000 independent business members across the U.S. and Canada. Every year, their annual conference brings together community leaders in sustainable agriculture, renewable energy, zero waste manufacturing, independent retail, community capital and pretty much green everything.

Because the conference was in Charleston this year we were able to take a whole crew of us down for the weekend to get inspired and re-energized for the work we do.

David Korten, author of When Corporations Rule the Worldand most recently Agenda for a New Economy and The Great Turning, kicked off with a call to arms to change Wall Street and “bigger at any cost” business by changing our “stories” from fictional stories of empire to authentic “earth community” stories that highlight local self reliance, social justice and living capital.

Marjorie Kelly, author of The Divine Right of Capital and Michael Shuman, author of Going Local and The Small-mart Revolution did a great job describing new models for alternative economies that include innovative tax laws and community land trusts, “B” corporation models and cooperatives.

India Pierce Lee of the Cleveland Foundation gave an inspiring presentation about Evergreen Cooperatives and their Cooperative Laundry project that demonstrates there is far more to eradicating poverty than merely creating “jobs.”

North Carolina was well represented at BALLE this year: Our good friend Eric Henry of TS Designs, along with farmer Ronnie Burleson of Stanly County and Brian Morell of Mortex Apparel wowed the crowd with their brilliant Cotton of the Carolinas Project. T-shirts made from cotton that is grown, ginned, spun, sewn and printed within 750 miles! Dirt to shirt!

Lyle Estill talked about Pittsboro's Piedmont Biofuels and Piedmont Biofarms. I also ran into Tony Kleese from Earthwise, and it was great catching up and talking to him about community based food systems.

Probably the most moving presentation was Lily Yeh’s story of The Village of Arts and Humanities, a community-based art organization in a North Philadelphia inner city neighborhood. Yeh, a native of China, says leadership is an art and art is a form of leadership. She told the story of how art helped people in her adopted community reconnect with each other and new community values. Yeh, members of her staff, and people in her community have quietly used sweat-equity, recycled materials, and other community resources to refurbish abandoned homes and construct new ones. They have also created after-school programs, a youth theater, a crafts center, and 14 parks for more than 10,000 people. Watch her presentation at the Bioneers Conference here.

Just when you think you’re doing all these brilliant things, you go and hear someone like Ms. Yeh. Humbling. Just plain humbling.

There was too much information and too many incredible experiences and people to write about here. But that's BALLE: there are mighty big shoes to fill in even the smallest communities. If you’re looking for glory, go somewhere else. If you’re looking for energy, inspiration, humility, and transformation, go to BALLE.

We're back and we've got a lot of work to do. The good news is that there are a lot of good people to help us. We just need to connect.

So it’s Monday, and I’ve got a lot of new websites to check out and emails to send and new ideas to think about. I hope you do too.

Senior walkers take over the STARwalks trail!

Walk, dance, play, work in your yard…30 minutes a day can help you stay in shape and feeling good. Physical activity is essential for all of us. Children, adults and seniors can benefit from moderate activity every day. Take a walk with a friend on The STARwalks recycled walking trail. Recently area seniors were invited to STARworks to see and experience the new recycled rubber trail installed in front of the facility. The STARwalks Partnership consisting of people from Central Park NC, STARworks, the Troy Montgomery Senior Center, Montgomery County Health Department, Montgomery County Council on Aging and the NC Cooperative extension were awarded a grant from the Fit Community program to build the trail and launch a walking program to encourage seniors to engage in a healthy lifestyle. The trail is made from 100% recycled materials. Almost 1000 large rubber truck tires were recycled and didn’t end up in a landfill in the building of this 1/8-mile loop. The permeable surface allows water to pass through it, allows aeration of the soil underneath, and helps eliminate water runoff pollution from asphalt or concrete that can end up in nearby streams and rivers. The low-impact rubber surface is less tiring because it reduces stress on walker’s joints, particularly knees and feet. The walking program rewards senior participants with a pedometer after 10 hours of aerobic activity and a T-shirt after 20 hours. Come take a walk on The STARwalks trail! This project was made possible with a generous grant from the North Carolina Health and Wellness Trust Fund, USDA Rural Communities Development Initiative and Central Park NC.

Walkers try out the new walking trail at STARworks. The 1/8-mile track is constructed of recycled rubber.

Walkers and agency representatives came out for the opening of the STAR Walks walking trail in front of STARworks.

A Bayada nurse takes a walker’s blood pressure. Other gencies that assisted with the event included the Montgomery Council on Aging, Montgomery Health Department, Home Care of the Carolinas.

New sign for the walking trail and first graders visit the garden

This week the guys finished installing the new walking trail sign and completed a few picnic tables (in the background) for the STARworks building. The new sign will be used to convey information about the importance of walking and ways to incorporate activity into daily life.

The sign is located in the front of the building near our recycled rubber walking trail built last year with a grant from Fit Community and North Carolina Health and Wellness Trust Fund. The recycled rubber walking surface is low impact and rather bouncy as seen below.
The first graders released as many wiggles as possible before their visit to the garden. After the kids ran around the track a few times and got rid of some excess energy we took them around the back of the building where they had a workshop in the with Anne about planting and gardening. In this picture the kids are painting signs for their own gardens at home. Anne will deliver their signs this week along with a packet of mystery seeds that they can plant at home and watch grow. The first graders were a blast and have boundless energy. They also have a way of draining the energy out of grown-ups! By the end of the day Anne, Tony and I were pretty exhausted. We had one group on Thursday and one on Friday for a total of 38 screaming first-graders. They had a blast and are ready to come back soon. STARworks Garden provides workshops for elementary school students free of charge to the school or students, but that doesn't mean that the workshops are free! Workshops like this for kids with not be possible without private contributions to STARworks garden. At STARworks with think it's important that kids learn where their food comes from and that they can grow their own food at home. Kids can come to our garden to learn about where their food comes from, how worms help soil, compost and gardening . These kids had a great time and they even enjoyed pulling weeds! To make a tax deductable donation to STARworks garden or any Central Park NC project, click here.

Join the Yadkin Riverkeeper Dean Naujoks as he finishes his trip to protect the Yadkin

River Rally - MAY 1ST, 1:00 pm Swift Island boat access, Lake Tillery Join us for a river rally. Our rivers and lakes are treasured natural resources that not only provide drinking water, but fishing, boating and recreational opportunities. Show your support for clean water. You are invited to celebrate the river and its lakes and to support efforts to recapture the Yadkin River for the citizens of NC. Bring your signs of support as we oppose Alcoa’s attempt to control our water. UNC-TV will be filming as the Yadkin Riverkeeper paddles down Lake Tillery for the finish of the 200+ mile Tour de Yadkin. Bring your family, friends and lawn chairs. Sign Contest: Win $100 Bring your homemade signs to support clean water or demonstrate your opposition to Alcoa and their negative effects on the river and lakes. The person who creates the sign judged by Yadkin Riverkeeper staff as most creative and meaningful will win $100. Paddlers & Boaters: You may paddle or cruise alongside the Riverkeeper during part of or all of his trip down Lake Tillery. The trip will begin at 9 am at Morrow Mountain State Park boat launch and continue 8 miles south down Lake Tillery to the Swift Island boat access, on 24/27. Directions: On NC 24/27, East of Albemarle, where NC 24/27 goes over Lake Tillery, on the Montgomery County (eastern) side of the Lake. See a google map here. click here to see the original page!

Camp E Ku Su Me kids help at STARworks.

Yesterday, and Tuesday a group of kids from Camp E Ku Su Me came to STARworks to help with some much needed work outside the building. On Tuesday we had twelve kids and three counselors so we split them up into teams. Anne took a group around back to the garden where they weeded beds, turned soil and got a mini workshop on vermicomposting and general garden knowledge. My team stayed in front to help dress up the flower beds and clean the STARworks sign. The helped us for about three hours and the beds look great.On Thursday we only had six kids so we spent our time sprucing up the neglected Magnolia area on the north side of the parking lot. The dirt had spread beyond the rotten cross ties that border the bed and so the kids shoveled it back in and then straightened up the whole thing. We hauled five or six loads of leaves and weeds around back in Steve-o's truck. I would have been great to have new cross ties to border the area, but we just re used the old ones for the time being. As we say at STARworks, "it's better than it was!"

Thanks to the kids and counsellors at E Ku Su Me, and to Steve-o, one of the most generous dudes I know!

Gift from Santa

Well Santa didn't bring me a roof yet, but Marla is working on it. Look what he did bring! It's a scissor lift!
If you have ever been at the top of a 12 foot ladder operating a sawzall over your head, you can appreciate the utility of this piece of equipment. It has a 20 foot working height and can easily lower heavy things that have been cut from the ceiling of our beloved textile mill. STARworks friend and CPNC board member Harold Vanderveer sold us this wonderful thing for almost nothing, he even threw in new batteries to boot. As I write this, Mac and Phil from Wet Dog Glass are using it to frame in the walls for our new bathrooms. It sure beats working on ladders.

Ahhhh water, the petroleum of the next generation.

This article in the New York Times discusses the difference between the legality of drinking tap water and its safety. Its 6 pages long so be ready if you want to read the whole thing. There are contaminants in the LA water system that form carcinogens when they are hit with UV light. The solution? Cover the reservoir with black plastic balls. Black plastic balls. The photo of the covered reservoir is awesome and disturbing. Its a little too Matrix for me. Related stories on the page tell of brown tap water that people are afraid to drink. I cant say I blame them, we are not strangers to brown water here at STARworks. Our situation has been improved, and most of our brown was rust from our pipes. But imagine having to fix a water system for the city of LA. It makes my brain hurt.

I always tell the kids that our generation is worried about and trying to change our ways about Petroleum and fuel, their generation will deal with water. It doesn't seem to scare them yet, but it does me. I think water purification or desalinization are the challenges of the future.

Here is our water tower, it's kind of an icon in our town, as I guess most water towers are. I don't know how many pictures I've taken of it. Our current water problems are mostly how to keep precipitation out of the building, how much it will cost to get the water to new bathrooms in building 6 and keeping the sprinkler pipes from freezing. Its getting real cold at night and threatening snow for tomorrow. My relationship with water has changed dramatically in the past years. How's yours?

The Roof

So here is the roof of buildings 2,6, 7 and 5. Pretty nice huh? it is almost 50,000 square feet of rapidly decaying foam under gravel. There are about 15 unused outdated a/c units on top of it and scads of unused conduit and wiring. It covers the north half of our building and is going to take about a quarter of a million dollars to replace. Wow.
Here is one particularly beautiful specimen that lives on our roof, the partially protected penetration. This cover consists of some rotting plywood "protected" by some spray foam roofing concoction from the 70's. You might see where I have squirted some caulk in the seams that have started to separate and deposit drips during heavy rains. Replace it you say? Pull it off and put a skylight there? Man that would be a great idea if it was not for the fact that nothing sticks to this foam stuff. Resealing the roof would be near impossible so I'm told. So, the whole thing needs to be replaced at once. If you have been to visit us here at STARworks, this roof covers our big room where we have our Annual Gathering as well as STARworks Ceramics. Santa, Please bring me a new roof, I've been as good as I could be this year and I promise I'll be good from now on!

Tree Trouble

Late this Summer, the 120 year old Turkey oak in front of STARworks was struck by lightning. It took out the top crown of the tree and needed some attention so we hired Total Land Care to come and do some pruning and tell us how to take care of the tree. While Chad Phillips, a certified arborist, was in the top of the tree making a cut to the damaged tree top, he heard and felt a loud POP. You can see Chad below pruning the tree about 40 feet in the tree top. Well, that pop was enough to make Chad stop his works and come down. The tree is heavier on one side and as he made the cut, the tree started to split.

At Chad's recommendation we contacted Guy Mellieur, a Certified Master Arborist that works with lightning damaged trees. Guy came out and climbed the tree and installed a cable to keep the tree from splitting down the center.
You can barely make it out in this photo. It is the thin white line that goes horizontally across the middle of the picture. Below the cable you can see the branch without bark where the crack originates. We think it would be a great tragedy for our tree to come down. It provides us a lot of shade and is truly majestic. Now we just have to wait till the spring and see if the tree makes it so that it can be treated further. If you make it out here to STARworks, hug our tree and hope for the best for it.

The Visionary's Birthday

Today is our leader Nancy's birthday. Nancy really is the reason that all of these things are happening at STARworks and the start of this whole thing. Once I told her that she "birthed" this place and it kind of creeped her out. But really, she is the one that was crazy enough to take on this building and bring all of the money to our county to fund these projects. If it weren't for Nancy, the Central Park NC offices would probably be in some boring office building and STARworks would not be here. Wet Dog Glass would not have relocated here from New Orleans, and Eddie Bernard would be a building contractor and house remodeler. The Glass Lab would not be here providing the only community access glass studio in North Carolina and one of five high school glass classes in the country. STARworks Ceramics would not be providing technical assistance and making local clay bodies for area potters, or selling materials and tools. Our building, including the old school building would have been torn down, and the place where I am sitting would be in a field of weeds. The STARworks garden would not be here and there would be no place for the elementary school kids to come and learn about how food comes from the ground without chemical fertilizer and that worms eat our garbage. Our Biodiesel facility would not be around to produce fuel from waste products and provide a solution for local disposal of cooking oil. I could go on and on, but since I can't type, this is taking me forever. The short story is that Nancy was born today, and the world is a better place because of that.

Here she is mopping the floor in the kitchen, doin' it the STARworks way. Do Executive Directors do this at all Non-Profits?

Whiter Toilets come to STARworks

Our plumbing reroute is finished! Roger Miller and his crew just finished routing the entire building’s plumbing around the planned demolition area. This also helps us with the rust in our lines. After the guys cut the old five inch lines I got to look inside and all I can say is ewwwwww. Also there were some nasty rusted spots in the building that threatened to pop at any moment. Our water is much cleaner now and our toilet bowls look a little better. The pipe we used to run the new lines is two inch galvanized pipe from the old compressed air system in the building. We pulled about 500 feet down and it was really clean inside. We also had all of the valves and fittings we needed. Recycling material from our building saves us money, shipping costs and pollution and energy usage involved with forming metal.

Here is a nice blister just ready to give way if it is ever bumped. This pipe serviced the old bathrooms in the portico on the back of the school building.

Heres one from the basement of the school building, it supplied water to the offices in the front and our little kitchen. You may be able to make out the "W" from the word water and the direction of the flow, it's pretty dark down there.

Here are a couple from the basement where the big pipe comes from the town. This pipe is 5 inches wide. Can you see why the water is cleaner?

I'm not even going to suggest what this might look like.

Instead of going through the Wet Dog fabrication space, the new line is routed in the glass lab. I took a picture but the line is kind of hard to make out

amongst all of the other stuff on the ceiling. It starts just to the right of center top in this picture and goes the length of that room. It's much more impressive in person.

Central Park NC Annual Gathering a success, STARworks Blog, not so much

Wow, the annual gathering is over and now what will we do? Well I guess we will start by cleaning up. Actually the clean up began the day after and hopefully I will get the rest of the chairs out of the big room by the end of the week. I think we sold most of the STARworks beer glasses the guys made and we certainly ran out of beer. We had about 200 people for the party and almost one hundred for the Michael Shuman workshop. The tour was great, the most people I have ever had. I think people were the most impressed with the way we are reusing this building especially the reclaimed parking bumpers that make the raised beds in the STARworks garden. The guys from Wet Dog did a sweet job of turning my vague ideas and crude sketches into some gallery walls that really fit in the space. On top of that they helped me hang a pretty nice art show that’s showcases the work of some of the artists that work at STARworks and in the building. This event would not be possible without the help of so many talented people both paid and volunteer that busted hump in the weeks prior to make the gathering an awesome evening.

If you didn't see the span of time covering these last two blog posts, it's huge. My usual excuse is that I'm too busy doing stuff to blog about doing stuff, so that's what I'll go with this time too. After that I always promise myself that I will get better and then fail miserably. This is how all of my journals ended up as a kid too. About ten pages in I lose it. Now it's part of my job. Weird how that happens huh? Well I promise to get better, How many people actually read this any way? Hello? Is this thing on?

Central Park NC Annual Gathering Oct 29th

Our Annual Gathering is less than a month away. We are scurrying around here inside our old textile mill building trying to transform manufacturing space into a party place. Oops, it's not just a party, but it's not a meeting either. We've started calling it our Annual Gathering instead of Annual Meeting this year, let's keep the bullet points to a minimum. We will have food, drink and live music and a keynote address by Michael Shuman, the author of The Small Mart Revolution. Michael Shuman will also present an afternoon workshop on how small communities and locally owned businesses can grow a healthy and dynamic economy, followed by a question & answer and discussion session. $15 Central Park Stewards/ $25 general public.

Though there is no registration fee for evening event; RSVP is required for both events. Please register at www.centralparknc.org or by calling

(910) 428-9001.

For Central Park NC Annual Gathering sponsorship opportunities, please contact Beth Throneburg via e-mail at beth@centralparknc.org or by calling (910) 428-9001.

Workshop with Michael Shuman 2:00-4:30 pm

Registration is required

Tour of STARworks businesses 4:30-5:30 pm

Central Park NC Annual Gathering 5:30-8:00 pm

Tax credits and Incentives for green upgrades available through Comfort South

Need a new heating and cooling system for your home or business? There has never been a better time to buy a geothermal system from Comfort South! There are renewable energy tax credits available to individuals and businesses through the state of North Carolina equaling 35% of the cost new energy efficient equipment. There are also green building incentives and a sales tax holiday for Energy Star rated equipment. There are federal incentives too. For more details on any or all of these programs, click here to read all about it on the Comfort South website. Get valuable tax credits while reducing your energy costs and your carbon footprint, that's good for the bottom line of any business or family!

Michael Shuman to speak at STARworks Annual Meeting.

We at STARworks are pleased to announce that Michael Shuman has agreed to be the speaker for our Annual Meeting on October 29th. Michael Shuman is vice president for Enterprise Development for the Training and Development Corporation (TDC) of Bucksport, Maine. A noted economist, attorney, author, and entrepreneur, Shuman is widely recognized for his research into the economic advantages of small-scale businesses in an era of globalization as well as the often over-looked benefits of building local economies in an era of big-box chains. He has authored, coauthored, and edited seven books, including The Small Mart Revolution: How Local Businesses are Beating the Global Competition (Berrett-Koehler, 2006) and Going Local: Creating Self-Reliant Communities in the Global Age (Free Press, 1998). The Small-Mart Revolution was just awarded a bronze medal for best business book by the Independent Publishers’ Association. Mr. Shuman will also be leading a pre-Annual Meeting workshop (space limited, pre-registration required) the afternoon of the Annual Meeting. Save the date!

Central Park NC and STARworks on UNC TV North Carolina Now

Central Park NC and STARworks were recently featured on UNC TV's program, North Carolina Now. Click here to see it! The piece features STARworks movers and shakers including Kenneth Cagle, Takuro Shibata and Eddie Bernard, not to mention the visionary herself Nancy Gottovi explaining exactly what it is we do here. If for some reason the link does not work, go to http://www.unctv.org/ncnow/features/august_09_01.html, scroll to the bottom of the page and click on "play video" next to Central Park NC. Enjoy!

This week at STARworks

A fury of activity this week at STARworks, lots of running around chasing pipes, wires and conduit, not to mention Nancy and anyone else that needs to weigh in on a given subject.  We have been busy planning the new gallery and graphic design space in our building.  The gallery will cover about 1000 square feet of one of our nice hardwood floored rooms and will give us a place to show artwork by STARworks artists.  In a nearby space we will build a graphics design studio that will provide graphic design services to area businesses and train ambitious local high school students to work in a creative environment.  The task of transforming the space involves clearing out old hardware and air conditioning units suspended from the former factory ceiling and rebuilding the area to suit its new use. 

 Here is a shot of the space as it exists now.  Something also has to be done about the battleship gray and blue racing stripe that Renfro painted on the walls.  We will also replace 4 old windows that used to be in front of the building so that some natural light comes into the space.  

There is an open house at STARworks Ceramics this Friday from 5-7 pm.  They will have new cone 6 clay available to sample in white and brown.  Click here to see their posting and a great pic of Santiago and his super cute assistant.

Nick has been busy in the hot shop working on the furnace and preparing for his High School art class from East Montgomery High.  He's bummed that the furnace is off and he can't blow glass, but he'll get over it.  I mean, doesn't this look fun too?

Tony is sweating every time I see him, working hard to get the bio fuels building ready for equipment delivery in late September.  If you see him, make sure to remind him to drink lots of water.  Click here to read about the progress he has made.

Of course our resident organic goddess is hard at work as well.  Anne has started seeds for the fall garden and assures me that salad days are soon to return.  We are trying to figure out landscaping plans in the back of the building so that we have a great space shared by our garden, the deck and the bio fuels area.  Her blog is great for all stuff related to gardening, veggies and food.  Check it out.

STARworks to Form a Biker Gang!

Well not really, but we do look really cool on our new bicycles that we received on Thursday, July 10, 2009. The bikes were purchased for Central Park NC and STARworks NC staff to use for errands, exercise, and to commute to work. The bikes were personally delivered by Middle Ring Cycles owner, Brian Bristol.

We love the bikes and look forward to reducing our carbon footprint by using them.