Students: Cate Adams, Emma Clopton, Isabelle Spirk, Julie Wright
- Identify the 10 toughest questions from the 14-page list, and answer them in advance of your presentations.
- What do your primary stakeholders do right now to address this issue? What options do your primary stakeholders currently have?
- To address the concern of community and environmental well-being, our stakeholders invest their time, energy, and resources at the park and through their networking. Lehigh faculty and students, local residents, locally-elected officials, and leaders of nonprofits engage in conversation to help us plan programming and implement events for education and further opportunities engage in interactive learning connected to the environment.
- Why haven’t other organizations taken a similar approach?
- There are not many defined “permaculture parks” that exist. People use the philosophy to practice regenerative agriculture within their personal garden spaces. However, the SSPP focuses on urban agriculture and being a collective community green space for people to eat, play, learn, and grow from.
- Who will pay for your product/service? How much are they willing to pay? Why?
- Through donations, grants, and crowdfunding, we seek financial capital from those with invested interested and shared goals of regenerative agricultural and sustainability practices. Our finances are gained from Lehigh, alumni, and other environmental groups.
- What kind of qualitative and quantitative metrics can you provide to validate your assumptions?
- We want to validate our assumptions by quantitative metrics of people reached and long-term partnerships gained. Qualitative metrics include increases in education of permaculture principles and ethics and generated interest resulting in community engagement through workshops and on-site activity at the park.
- What are your biggest gaps in your understanding of your customers / stakeholders?
- Trust/reliability
- History of the land and Lehigh gentrifying the area, hurting southside residents
- What is your IP strategy?
- Working with Risk Management to help define what our IP strategy is and should look like and how we can monitor the park operations that are in compliance with Lehigh policy.
- What is your Cost of Goods Sold (COGS)?
- Our COGS include the expenses required to produce and host workshops at the park as well as at other sites of education like at MLK garden and Broughal Middle School.
- What is your Social Return on Investment (SROI)?
- Our SROI includes providing an inviting green space for community gatherings, promoting healthy eating and sustainable living habits, and educating people about regenerative agriculture
- How will you build a sense of community and trust?
- By showing up. We want to present ourselves and the park to be an anchor for the community, knowing familiar faces at meetings, events, etc. We are working diligently to build our credibility of the park.
- What is your core innovation? What sets you apart? What is fundamentally novel about your approach / solution?
- The concept of permaculture is to mimic natural functions within the ecosystem. By working with rather than against nature, we are able to successfully develop self-regulating systems that meet the needs of both people and the planet. The SSPP is unique by implementing these practices within an urban environment. By using permaculture, we are able to heal the soil and the land, improve local biodiversity, reduce effects of Bethlehem’s urban heat island, and reduce soil erosion.
- Write 3 elevator speeches about your project:
- For a professor/advisor
The Southside Permaculture Park is a student-led initiative that works to implement permaculture principles and sustainable agricultural practices by growing high-yield crops in an urban, quarter-acre plot of land on campus. Students manage the park to grow produce that can be given out locally: both to people affiliated with Lehigh but also with the wider Southside community. We seek to bridge the gap between Lehigh and the local community by focusing on indigenous knowledge and listening to feedback from those that reside in Southside. Working with the land instead of developing it, SSPP puts in action environmental ethics of ecocentrism, working as a member of an interconnected ecosystem, and general ethics of concern for the earth. Financial, social, and natural capital are all leveraged to achieve our goals and execute tangible, sustainable impact.
- For an interviewer for a summer internship
The Southside Permaculture Park project is a student-led initiative run through Lehigh University’s Creative Inquiry Lehigh Valley Social Impact Fellow program. The park’s mission is focused on holistic health and well-being for people and the local Bethlehem community. Permaculture is a holistic design philosophy that mimics natural relationships and leverages indigenous knowledge that focuses on creating sustainable self-regulating systems. Permaculture integrates ecological principles, design strategies to create resilient and productive ecosystems that can thrive over the long term. By using these regenerative practices, The Southside Permaculture Park is working to address pressing macro challenges on a micro level, such as food insecurity, social inequality, and climate change all through working with the local environment.
- For a roommate asking about your project
The Southside Permaculture park is focused on prioritizing community and planetary health and well being. We are located right off of campus and encourage students, faculty, and community members to visit us and use our space. Our practices are centralized around permaculture philosophy which mimics natural relationships and leverages indigenous knowledge that focuses on creating sustainable self-regulating systems. We are currently growing higher-yielding foods all started from seed. We also use different growing techniques such as an herb spiral which determines the success of a plant’s growth by its placement and exposure to sun and water. We are working hard to restore the community’s relationship with the land. Prior to Lehigh’s ownership, the land was a park space for people to hang out, now it shuns the community away. The park encourages all students to come harvest and get their hands in the soil.