Mission Waco – which has dabbled in economic development in the North Waco neighborhood – has now set its sights on becoming a pioneer of sustainability and renewable energy.
Under cloudy skies, Mission Waco’s executive Director Jimmy Dorrell announced the non-profits latest community undertaking: Urban Renewable Energy and Agriculture Project, or Urban REAP for short.
The project will include an aquaponics greenhouse, a rainwater catchment and purification system, a composting system, and use solar energy.
For Dorrell, bringing all of this to North Waco is part of revitalizing one of Waco's most impoverished communities -- and it's something the neighborhood sought out.
"People in the community have wishes and dreams and we listen to them really well," Dorrell said. "We build from relationships in the community and out of that the next things come."
Urban REAP is bolstered by a sizable grant from the Green Mountain Energy Sun Club.
The nonprofit will donate $234,000 towards Mission Waco’s sustainability efforts.
“Mission Waco is a force for good in the Waco area, and we’re proud to help support them in becoming more sustainable”, Mark Parsons, president of Green Mountain Energy Sun Club, said.
The idea for the sustainability project dates back to more than a year ago when Dorrell surveyed the space that would become the Jubilee Market. He had hopes of using the adjacent space to build a greenhouse.The idea was to create a center for community members to learn about sustainability and grow organic food for the market.
“We tore it down with the idea that some day in the future we might be able to do some environmental kind of things to teach our neighborhood and city how to be better stewards of the world.”
Dorrell hopes the greenhouse will become a learning center for the community and inspire other sustainability efforts.
“If we can find out in a year or two from now that neighborhood people are growing little grow beds in their housing complexes, we’ve done our job,” Dorrel said. “That’s the kind of stuff we want to see happening.”
Engineering students from Baylor University will help design the solar energy and rainwater catchment and purification systems the project relies on.