The Green Committee will use funds from a $6,700 grant to create a ‘Green Learning Center’ to educate residents about the importance of renewable energy, recycling and green living.

The program was spearheaded by Green Committee member Carleen Eve Fischer Hoffman, who was inspired to create a learning center after seeing something similar on vacation in Bermuda.

” I think it is such a beneficial thing to have in the community to remind people about what they should be doing every day like recycling and conserving energy, ” she said.

Fischer Hoffman applied for the ” Massachusetts Technology Collaborative Clean Energy Grant ” last year and was approved to do the learning center as part of the community outreach component of the grant. Fischer Hoffman said not all of the grant money will go towards the learning center.

” We have been working closely with East Longmeadow High School as well. They have their own Green Committee and it is our hope that our committee will be able to help the school in some way by purchasing books that discuss clean energy, science kits that help understand clean energy, or helping them build a composting site at their school, ” she said. Money for those items would also come from the grant.

Country Glass & Mirror on Shaker Road will be donating the Plexiglass for the exhibit and Kelly Fradet lumber on North Main Street will be donating non-knotted pine for the display bases, she said.

” These 2 local businesses are very generously donating the materials necessary to create a large portion of the displays, ” she said.

Fischer Hoffman hopes to have the center completed by Earth Day 2010, which falls on April 22. The goal is to have the center hosted at a particular school or other public or private building for six months to a year at a time.

” There will be a reading corner with books that people can check out and pamphlets that they can take home. I will update the displays on a monthly basis with current information, ” she said.

Fischer Hoffman said she is impressed with the enthusiasm and dedication of the Green Committee.

” This has really been a great group of people to work with,” she said. “This is the first grant of its kind that we have received in town and we are looking at other ways to get funds to help us promote green technology in East Longmeadow. ”

source: http://www.masslive.com/springfield/republican/index.ssf?/base/news-27/1268124746299310.xml&coll=1