MISSION
The mission of the MERJ Action Team is to engage a broad group of
citizens in decisions & actions that foster sustainable economic,
environmental, & social progress for Madison, Estill, Rockcastle
and Jackson
MERJ SUSTAINABILITY
POLICY
On the most general level,
sustainability is the philosophy and practice of living in harmony with natural
surroundings and utilizing resources for our sustenance in a manner that can be
continued indefinitely into the future (e.g., recycling, reusing items,
composting, carpooling, etc.).
Sustainability also includes the application of appropriate technology,
or the use of sustainable energy sources (i.e., solar, micro-hydro, or wind
power) as well as methods of construction. In a local context, ecological
sustainability is expressed by the support and development of local resources,
skills, and economy.
MERJ
Market is a sustainable community center for activities, networking, and
exchange of goods and skills in the MERJ area, and thus provides a basic
foundation for modeling sustainability on a broad but local level. Pilot Knob is central to the geographic
convergence of the four MERJ counties and is therefore accessible to a large
number of rural residents from those counties.
Also, this centralized location serves as a “center of town” in which
continuous, sustainable community development and interchange can occur among
the people in the Berea/MERJ area.
Therefore, MERJ Market reflects and encompasses not only the area of
outreach that it would be serving (i.e., “merging” of the four counties), but
also the broad range of services and activities at Pilot Knob (i.e., “merging”
and serving various community needs in a central location). *
* For information about national and local
support for sustainable living, see of The
Cultural Creatives: How 50 Million People are Changing the World, Dr. Paul
Ray and Dr. Sherry Ruth Anderson, New York: Harmony Books; 2000 and Kentucky
Long-Term Policy Research Center publication Reclaiming Community, Reckoning with Change: Rural Development in the
Global Context, Michal Smith-Mello, Frankfort, Kentucky: Kentucky Long Term
Policy Center; 1995