Conservation to create donor wall memorializing those who contributed to nature center

Even though Jasper County Conservation’s environmental education center has already begun to take shape, donations are still being accepted. But those who now offer — or have already offered — $1,000 or more to the project before the July 1 deadline will have their names featured on a donor wall art piece.

Contributing donations to county conservation during this timeframe may also increase the donor levels of individuals who have already given to the project. Donor levels start from as low as $1,000 and gradually grow to as high as $300,000. Other sponsorship opportunities are still available as well.

Jasper County Conservation Director Keri Van Zante said the donor wall will be located inside the nature center and will be visible to guests as soon as they enter the building. Final designs for the wall have not been decided just yet, but Van Zante expected it would have primarily wooden features with poured epoxy.

“We’ll put it out there and announce it when we have the final mockup to show,” Van Zante said, acknowledging many donor walls have featured names on bricks or perhaps even names on leaves. “We wanted our’s to be unique. We actually took some time to look around so we didn’t do the same things.”

So many donors have reached the $1,000 benchmark that conservation has had to make the donor wall bigger and add extra pieces.

“Which is awesome!” Van Zante said.

Anyone who has visited the Dana King Ceretti Environmental Education Center construction site will notice just how much progress has been made on the building. The first phase of the project features classrooms, laboratory space, offices for staff, a meeting room and an observation deck.

Van Zante said crews are working on the framing of the building at the moment, and they are preparing the polished concrete floors. The nature center itself is built into a hillside in the 5200 block of Liberty Avenue, just down the road from the sheriff’s office. Seeing the nature center come to life is almost surreal.

“We’ve waited for so long and it’s finally real,” Van Zante said.

Eventually, the building will be outfitted with almost 100 feet of solar panels that are positioned for the most solar gain in the winter. Van Zante said most of the nature center should effectively operate off of solar energy. She added it is exciting to see the building make progress after so many years fundraising.

“It’s something conservation leaders have talked about now for 30 years,” she said. “It’s finally here and it’s finally actually happened, and I think it’s going to be better than even we imagined. At the same time as phase one being built, phase two is going to start being built here in the next couple of months.”

Geisler-Penquite Foundation fully funded the second phase of the project with a $700,000 grant last year. The second phase constructs the Geisler-Penquite Land Stewardship Lab, which features a classroom, an indoor digital archery range, outdoor restrooms, recreational equipment storage and a greenhouse.

Conservation is planning to have construction walk-throughs with the public sometime in the near future.

Van Zante hopes residents feel a great sense of pride by the time the nature center is completed. The project leaned heavily on community backing. Grants and American Rescue Plan Act funds from the board of supervisors helped immensely, but everything else has been individual donations.

People will know the nature center was a community effort as soon as they walk through the doors and see the names memorialized on the donor wall.

“Just because you didn’t decide or have the means to donate to the donor wall but later on your wanted to donate, there are lots of opportunities to donate even beyond the donor wall,” Van Zante said. “There are rooms to name and educational components to classrooms we still need.”