Baye Adofo-Wilson, executive director of the Lincoln Park Coast Cultural District (LPCCD), spoke at the STLCC-Meramec Theater Oct. 10 in a presentation on green jobs and environmental development.
Eric Aiken
– Staff Writer –
Baye Adofo-Wilson, executive director of the Lincoln Park Coast Cultural District (LPCCD), spoke at the STLCC-Meramec Theater Oct. 10 in a presentation on green jobs and environmental development.
Adofo-Wilson founded the LPCCD, which is a grassroots organization dedicated to revitalize the once decaying and abandoned neighborhood of Lincoln Park in Newark, N.J. His success in Lincoln Park was attained through environmentally sustainable housing design, and today he is considered an expert on community economic development and workforce training programs in the market for green jobs.
“We were a community based organization concerned about climate change, concerned about global warming, but for the most part we were a community organization trying to save our neighborhood,” Adofo-Wilson said.
The presentation was co-sponsored by STLCC and the St. Louis Regional Chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council. Hope Breidenbach, membership education coordinator of the local USGB, said that one reason the organization chose to partner with STLCC for this event was because of its expertise in education.
“STLCC reaches a very broad student body and we feel that there is a need for more education in the green building sector in our area,” Adofo-Wilson said. “It seems like a great fit.”
Adofo-Wilson also fit well into the event, as the environmental and cultural situations in his hometown of Newark are similar to those in St. Louis.
“[The LPCCD is] doing it in Newark, N.J., which is, as you know, not much unlike St. Louis in terms of the level of poverty and the level of challenges that are there,” Adofo-Wilson said. “So, we are in the same process.”
With the lack of a big budget at its beginning, the LPCCD had to rely on its ideas on engaging the community in order to be successful.
“The only thing we really had was our cultural experience,” Adofo-Wilson said. “And in that, we just got to the place where we saw where all the pieces fit together.”
One purpose of the presentation was to give a sense of reality to green jobs in America.
“I think, oftentimes, we gloss over these issues and we sort of talk about it more in the abstract,” Adofo-Wilson said. “And I’m saying we’re engaged in a process right there where we have buildings that we’re working on, we have community based organizations, and there are tangible ways to engage the private sector.”
While addressing the USGBC, Adofo-Wilson stressed need for environmentalists to act now and act without mistakes.
“I just want you to make sure that there’s a method to it, because in the current age now, where there’s stimulus package money, and we don’t know how long this will last, and the economy is where it’s at, we don’t really have a lot of room for error,” Adofo-Wilson said.
