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The "Benton MacKaye Center" is modeled in part
from his writing about the camp idea and other aspects of both his
writing and more recent work such as Peter Forbes' work for the Trust
for Public Land on the role of land and people.
JoAnn & Paul Dolan have been volunteers on this project for six
years.
The Sterling Project has three interconnected program areas:
- The teaching landscape (with a heavy focus on research and
landscape monitoring which at Sterling will focus on land, water and
air quality monitoring)
- The creative landscape (use of the landscape as stimulus for
writing, poetry, painting, photography, sculpture, etc.)
- The healing landscape (current examples include a pediatric
bereavement program, a project for children with special needs,
a program for children of war from Northern Ireland, a pilot
program for visually impaired children, and a planned link to
urban gardens many of which are in materially impoverished areas)
The site for the project is currently a Russian and Slavic Cultural
Society which has leased usage of its facilities (gardens, stone
mountain lodge, 8 cabins, dance hall) for the above and other
programs. Plans are to acquire the full property through a
three year capital campaign of about 6 million dollars and then
operate via lease arrangements to strong non-profit partners (schools,
cultural groups, etc.)
We expect that in three years this project will be a model for other
centers along the trail and at other large preserved landscapes
(Sterling is 18,000 acres of newly preserved land within one hour of
the New York Metropolis). A sister project on a smaller scale is being
planned for Seattle with strong support from Microsoft co-founder Paul
Allen and the Packard Foundation.
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