June 11, 2002 == FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
A new interpretive center at Calvin College is intended to benefit the
community. So it's appropriate that almost half of the center's cost has
already been raised thanks to a member of the community and a community
foundation.
Calvin's new ecosystem interpretive center will be a $2 million facility,
complete with classroom, interactive displays and more. Grand Rapids resident
Helen Bunker, who, with her deceased husband Vincent, lived for 40 years near
the 80-acre Ecosystem Preserve, has donated $750,000 to the project. And the
Grand Rapids Community Foundation just announced a $150,000 gift to the effort.
Both donors resonate with Calvin's desire to preserve, in the midst of a busy
suburban environment, the measure of peace and tranquility that can be found in
the Ecosystem Preserve's woods, ponds and wetlands. The Preserve is home to
over 100 species of birds, almost 30 species of mammals, nine species of
amphibians, six reptile species and three fish species. A visit to the Preserve
might turn up everything from deer to fox to frogs to snakes.
In fact the Grand Rapids Community Foundation grant comes from the Charles
Evenson Fund for the Environment. Evenson, an avid outdoorsman who treasured
Michigan's land, water and wildlife, established the fund to help preserve the
natural environment for future generations.
"Even after his death, Mr. Evenson is still helping to preserve the land he
loved through this fund," said Diana Sieger, Grand Rapids Community Foundation
president.
Calvin's Ecosystem Preserve has four goals: 1) to preserve the complex of
habitats (the ecosystem) on the site; 2) to provide a scientific resource for
study by regular college classes, as well as for individual research; 3) to
provide a passive recreational resource for the College community; and 4) to
provide an educational resource for the larger community of southeast Grand
Rapids.
It is this final goal that will be most enhanced by the new building, to be
known as the Vincent and Helen Bunker Interpretive Center. Immediately it will
allow Calvin to double the programs offered to local schools (already some 2,000
children from 35-40 local schools visit the Preserve in the fall and spring).
Plans are for the Bunker Interpretive Center to contain:
~a classroom/auditorium with seating for 60 and a wall-to-wall windowed
overlook on the preserve
~a classroom/laboratory for 24 students
~a workroom/conference room for 14-16 volunteers
~display spaces
All of this will enable Calvin to provide year-round environmental education
and will allow Calvin to do more programming for the general public. Currently
schools are limited to activities in the Preserve because of the weather. They
have a short window in October and November and another in April and May. The
new Center will allow for hands-on learning (a key focus and need according to
local K-8 science teachers) from September through May. It also will allow for
expansion of Calvin's summer camps program in the Preserve. And it will be the
setting for a new two-week summer course in outdoor education for local school
teachers (to be led by Calvin faculty) that will run concurrently with the
summer camps.
Calvin also plans to reach out beyond its students in putting together a cadre
of Center volunteers. While it will continue to use students from such
disciplines as education, biology and environmental studies, it also will reach
out to adult volunteers, including seniors. The new Center will be the base of
operations for this new corps of volunteers.
Finally the new Interpretive Center will be a plus for casual visitors to the
Preserve with its educational and historical displays, its staffed information
station and its restrooms!
Construction will begin in 2002-2003 and enhanced programming will begin in
2003-2004.
See http://www.calvin.edu/academic/eco-preserve/
-end-
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