SE Clean Energy Resource Team (SE CERT) is a regional team of citizens working for our renewable energy future, partnering with local organizations, statewide counterparts and University of Minnesota resources. See http://www.cleanenergyresourceteams.org/regions/southeast and http://certs-se.org for regional highlights, success stories and technical and financial resources for clean energy projects. See http://www.cleanenergyresourceteams.org for more information on CERTS statewide and for a great wealth of information on renewable energy technologies.
Regional Food Systems outreach & education --
**We are putting on public events and sponsoring the development of educational tools to help grow regional food systems, such as Ken Meter's economic analysis of the food and farm economy of southeast MN and Gigi DiGiacomo's report on MN grocery store demand for local, organic farm products. More...
**Our Farm Stories book project got off the ground and onto the bookshelves! Gary Holthaus’ From the Farm to the Table: What All Americans Need to Know about Agriculture was published by the University Press of Kentucky as the first in its series, Culture of the Land: A Series in the New Agrarianism. More...
**We are developing an online social network for producers and consumers of local foods in Minnesota - see www.localfoods.umn.edu.
Citizens for a Healthy Dodge County worked to make Dodge County the first southeastern county with local foods information on this website.
**We are co-sponsoring Faces of our Farmers - a project of Winona County Extension to develop a traveling photo-essay exhibit telling the story of Winona County's food farmers.
**We are co-sponsoring and bringing UM speakers to a series of gatherings organized by Red Wing's Riverbend Market Cooperative. Community leaders will learn about and consider ways to build a new food system for the Red Wing area. See poster for events & registration.
**Minnesota Grape Growers Association - In collaboration with the Northwest and West Central Regional Partnerships, we sponsored a growers profile and economic impact study of MN's grape and wine industry by the UM Department of Applied Economics for MGGA.
SEE The Economic Contribution of Grape Growers and Wineries to the State of Minnesota and Minnesota Grape Growers Profile 2007.
Earth Partnership for Schools Summer Institute for Teachers - The University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Earth Partnership for Schools (EPS) is a nationally recognized model of teacher professional development that applies best practices in K-12 education. ERC is sponsoring a Summer Institute for Teachers to learn about the EPS curriculum. Participating teachers will learn about the cultural and natural history of ecosystems through a variety of hands-on activities and field experiences and how to make effective use of schoolyard ecological restoration sites as living laboratories for student learning. The Institute is being planned by staff at Eagle Bluff Environmental Learning Center, LaCrescent Community Education and a team of LaCrescent middle school teachers already trained in the EPS curriculum.
Community Capacity-Building Initiative – This is a new way for us to interact with and deepen our connections with the communities we serve through a process that helps local people identify their assets and capabilities and mobilize them to create the kind of future they envision for themselves. With the sponsorship and technical assistance of the Southern Minnesota Initiative Foundation (SMIF), we have modeled our Community Capacity-Building Initiative on SMIF’s Town Meeting Initiative - and adding some twists of our own. More...
Frozen River Film Festival Next Step group - The first recipient of ERC's Community Capacity-Building Initiative was the Winona-based Frozen River Film Festival Next Steps group. With training and support from ERC they generated three projects: community gardening plots, a locally-grown food and curriculum program for school children, and a newspaper project. View project poster.
Managed Forest Land property tax outreach – We are sponsoring outreach to foresters and forest landowners about the new MN property tax classification (Class 2c Managed Forest Land), as well the existing Sustainable Forest Incentive Act (SFIA). UM Extension staff and faculty will lead this effort. The project team will conduct web-based and face-to-face classes for foresters and forest landowners to understand this new law and the application process. They will create a website describing both the 2c Class and SFIA and provide links to the government and University websites. Users will be able to ask experts questions about on the laws. The project will end with an evaluation that compares landowners who enrolled their lands in either SFIA or Class 2c to those who did not enroll their lands to learn more about their different characteristics, motivations, and barriers to enrollment.
Hiawatha Fund – This long-term initiative was established to develop a base of sustainable financing to support in-region enterprises (farms, small businesses, entrepreneurs, etc.) by providing pools of accessible equity capital to replace a debilitating dependence on debt capital that often defeats efforts aimed at sustainable development. Outcomes to date include development of a model and business plan for this regionally-based investment fund, research on sustainable financing realities and a review associated legal issues. Currently, Hiawatha Fund is under contract to assemble materials outlining the rationale for local investment and the potential for the Hiawatha Fund to play a strong role in the future growth of the region and to offer educational sessions in the region that create awareness of the importance of regional investment.
Hiawatha Valley Partnership – ERC is supporting the community-based Hiawatha Valley Partnership in its efforts to heighten awareness of development pressures in communities along the Mississippi River between Red Wing and Wabasha. The UM Department of Landscape Architecture created thematic maps and visual content for an area atlas and the UM Center for Rural Design is completing a study examining the St. Lawrence sub-surface geologic formation to determine its relationship to water quality and safety for the built environment. View DRAFT study. View project poster.
Houston Nature Center Festival of Owls – ERC helped the Nature Center obtain a UM Community Assistantship Program intern through the UM Tourism Center to survey festival attendees to target future planning. View project poster.
Minnesota City Historical Association – ERC is helping this organization create community identity in MN City by providing a UM student for website creation, UM Extension facilitation of a community networking meeting, a speaking event on the early development and abandonment of frontier towns in MN by a UM PhD candidate and microgrants to create a historical marker and establish MCHA's new home in the historic First Baptist Church building.
Project Get Outdoors – Project GO is a different kind of outdoor and environmental education program that is the dream and brainchild of SE Naturalist Sara Grover. Project GO links youth with adult mentors for exploration and play in nature close to home as a way to engage youth and ignite self-directed environmental education experiences. ERC is contracting with Sara to continue her trialing of the program with area youth, as well as developing the organization structurally and financially. U of MN partners include Extension, 4-H and the School of Public Health. View project poster. View Project Get Outdoors website.
Readers of the Lost Art/International Traveling Trunks – The Media Center and students at Plainview-Elgin-Millville High School are developing trunks to travel throughout southeast Minnesota on loan to schools. The group calls itself "Readers of the Lost Art." They hope these interactive toolboxes allow students to "trunk travel," taking them around the world and fostering an environment of appreciation, respect and acceptance among the diverse populations in southeast Minnesota. ERC is supporting the project with a grant for purchasing the trunks and has hired a UM student to develop interest on the Twin Cities campus and encourage donations from international student groups and University departments. The trunks will be filled with authentic artifacts and materials from a wide variety of countries. Donations are still needed. If you have ethnic clothing, shoes, jewelry, authentic cultural household items, artifacts, artwork, games, books, music, films, cookbooks, kitchen utensils or other materials—please contact Deb Algadi, P-E-M High School, 507-534-3128 ext 427; dalgadi@isd2899.k12.mn.us. View project poster.
SE Libraries Cooperating (SELCO)/SE Library System (SELS) – ERC donated its organizational library of sustainable development materials to SELCO. In addition to the physical browsing library at the SELCO offices in Rochester, the collection is searchable online and can be checked out by users statewide. With SELCO’s help, ERC also donated copies of From the Farm to the Table to the region’s public libraries. Additionally, SELCO/SELS and ERC were awarded a federal grant for our Libraries as Partners in Rural Sustainability project, and co-sponsored a series of Free Public Forums around various topics of sustainability, bringing UM speakers to our rural libraries, January - April 2008. All events were taped for online podcasts, and can be viewed by clicking on the title of the event.
MicroGrant/Sponsorship Fund - In two phases each fiscal year (July-Dec and January-June), ERC offers - first come, first served - three $200 mini grants to support work furthering sustainable landscapes and/or communities in SE MN to community organizations, nonprofits or governmental units. Another $1,200 per fiscal year is available for event sponsorships. As much as possible, this will be split between regionally-organized events and statewide or national events.
Scenario Planning/Minnesota 2050 – The UMN Ecosystem Science and Sustainability Initiative and the UMN Regional Sustainable Development Partnerships are collaborating to host regional day-long workshops where community members, farmers, business-owners, regional leaders, and University faculty contemplate the future relationship between people and the land in Minnesota. Insights from each regional session will guide local strategic planning and sustainable development efforts and will also contribute to statewide environmental scenarios. These scenarios, in turn, will inform the development of a Statewide Conservation Plan for the Legislative-Citizen Commission on Minnesota Resources and will be broadly communicated to the citizens and policy makers of our state.
Human Capital Fund for SE Residents – ERC offers scholarships for SE residents within our area of service. Scholarships may be offered for conferences anywhere, providing they are approved by the ERC executive committee. Scholarships may cover the costs of registration, mileage, meals and lodging (per UM policy), but may not exceed $250 per person. No one individual may receive more than one scholarship from ERC during a fiscal year. But, ERC may sponsor the same individual to the same annual conference for up to two years in a row – to provide for long-term learning. A short report will be asked of attendees. Read what scholarship recipients have learned. 
