ECOLIBRIUM3

Have you heard of the Lincoln Park Craft District or #CraftingSomethingGreat? For 10 years Ecolibrium3 has been a behind-the-scenes force for cultivating a supportive environment for entrepreneurs in the Lincoln Park neighborhood. We are allied with Main Street America™ to receive full Main Street designation. This national program offers a framework that showcases a community’s unique characteristics, and cultivates partnerships, community involvement, and resources for the district.

Our role with the program is to provide technical assistance (marketing, grant writing, promotional materials, resource information, and more), lead communications efforts for the district, manage the Main Street LNPK gift card program, and coordinate promotional efforts for the commercial corridor like Adopt-A-Can and the Main Street LNPK map.

Our AmeriCorps VISTA Corps works across a variety of sectors from food security, sustainability, neighborhood resiliency, access to education, affordable housing, economic development, and public health. Starting with just 4 positions, our Corps now supports 41 full-time VISTA positions that help eradicate poverty and build the capacity of the dozens of organizations they serve.

Some of the successes of past VISTA members include:

- Collecting environmental and emissions data and communications for the City’s newly formed Office of Sustainability.
- Facilitating a program to connect kids with donated books at the Lincoln Park Children and Families Collaborative.
- Developing community-based participatory research at the John Hopkins Center for American Indian Health.
- Advancing food sovereignty initiatives with the Fond du Lac Band of the Lake Superior Chippewa.
- Coordinating free art workshops and a leadership and arts camp for kids at the Duluth Art Institute.

Completed in 2020, the Lincoln Park Solar Garden is the first community-owned, low-income solar project in Duluth. The project brought together community organizations, city staff, and our electric utility to build a 40-kilowatt solar array that produces electricity for the Duluth Veterans’ Place, a local transitional housing project by the Minnesota Assistance Council for Veterans and provides long-term funding to help low-income families struggling to pay their utility bills through an Eco3 Energy Fund.

Next steps for the solar garden is to incorporate the input from a series of community workshops to design the space beneath the panels, making it a place for gathering, pollinator habitat, art and more.

From 2017 to 2018, we led efforts to make climate action a key part of Duluth’s comprehensive plan update process. Our efforts were successful, resulting in the city establishing an Energy and Conservation Focus group, a city commitment to reduce carbon 80% by 2050, and the launch of a new Energy Plan Commission.

But while these were important movements forward, City of Duluth emissions make up only 4% of community-wide emissions. So, together with our community partners, we led the development of the Duluth Citizens’ Climate Action Plan. This plan draws on local, state, and international expertise to name the key actions we need to take to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. When the Duluth City Council passed a climate emergency resolution in April 2021 and tasked the city with creating its own climate action plan, Sustainability Officer for the City of Duluth Mindy Granley, named the Duluth Citizens’ Climate Action Plan as “fundamental guidance" for the city's plan.

Our newest project, the Lincoln Park Resilience Hub, reimagines the Lincoln Park Community Center into a community space that will address health and economic disparities in the neighborhood while demonstrating potential for resilient power solutions. By creatively adapting existing community assets, the Hub will house a community market, a community kitchen and food entrepreneur program, as well as Duluth’s winter warming shelter for individuals experiencing houselessness, and multiple direct service nonprofits.

The Eco3 Urban Farm, reimagines and expands the farm at Lake Superior College into a community space that strengthens food access and addresses health disparities in the Lincoln Park neighborhood. It provides urban agriculture and food education programs through the development of a greenhouse education site appropriate for winter/spring use. It will offer accessible gardening space to those who may face barriers to participation due to physical mobility, age, or income. The farm helps support a more equitable and inclusive food system in the community in combination with food production space at the Lincoln Park Resilience Hub for small food entrepreneurs working in the community kitchen.