Residents work for sustainable future

By Lurie Silberg
Correspondent

MAPLEWOOD -A group of seniors from the Winchester Gardens continuing care retirement community are tackling the climate crises head on, forming The Ecological Sustainability Committee in the hopes that thinking locally will translate to thinking globally for future generations.

“We are trying to think globally and act locally,” said Daniella Gioseffi, chairwoman of the 11-member Ecological Sustainability committee, which has also formed several subcommittees, including the Micro Forest and the Renewable Energy subcommittees. The committee was formed this past May, and plans to meet every other month.

Gioseffi, a four- year resident of Winchester Gardens’ independent living facility, is a lifelong women’s rights and environmental activist, as well as an author of many books. She served on former Vice President Al Gore’s Climate Reality Leadership Corp., launched in 2006, and is a certified climate leadership speaker.

The group hopes to inspire Winchester Gardens’ management company, Springpoint – which owns eight life plan communities across New Jersey and Delaware – “to be more environmentally sustainable, leaving it even more inviting for future generations,” Gioseffi said.

The purpose of the committee, with regard to climate resilience and environmental sustainability, is to draft a plan of ideas that will complement Springpoint’s vision plan for renovations, Gioseffi noted.

Timing for this endeavor comes at a good time, as the entire property, which makes up a total of 37 acres including the buildings and land, will turn 100 years old next year and is slated for renovations.

The Winchester Gardens property is steeped in a rich New Jersey history. The former 21st governor of the state, Marcus Lawrence Ward, was responsible for the creation and development of the original buildings and grounds. The last surviving child of the Ward family and a lifelong bachelor, Ward was behind the idea of building a home for “aged and respectable bachelors and widowers, and left most of the family’s fortune to this endeavor.

The original board of trustees purchased the large former dairy farm in 1923. The property’s gardens were designed by the Olmsted Brothers, whose father was the well- known landscape artist Frederick Law Olmstead, designer of New York City’s Central Park.

The first woman resident moved in to the facility in 1980, and the name of the facility was officially changed to Winchester Gardens in the early 1990s. In 2013, Winchester Gardens was bought by the Springpoint family of senior living communities.

Tom Schrader, a 6-month resident and retired longtime employee of the Environmental Protection Agency, heads up Winchester’s Micro Forest (also known as a Tiny Forest) subcommittee, aptly named due to its method of planting mini forests to rapidly establish areas of growth in small spaces.

The microforest subcommittee is investigating the feasibility of using micro forests to help restore the woodland areas of the grounds.

The tiny forest technique works by planting a large number of trees and shrub seedlings, and scattering native plant seeds, forcing competition among them, thereby promoting rapid growth in approximately three years.

Thoughtful and sustainable landscaping can absorb carbon dioxide, improve air quality, control soil erosion, and offer reduced emissions from lawn equipment, just to name a few of the benefits, according to Schrader.

A committee on Renewable Energy was also established, and its members are investigating the possibility of using solar panel parking lots, which generate electricity by drawing energy from the sun. Electricity from the Solar panels can then be used to power lights and appliances, thereby helping to reduce energy bills, said Schrader.

“Our motive is to save the earth for our children and the young people,” said Gioseffi. “Climate catastrophe is our biggest problem: I want my kids to know I worked on climate justice for them.”

Gioseffi said the goal of the committee is to work hand and hand with management. “We are hoping to inspire management to look into these ideas,” she said, adding the committee has had one meeting with them so far.

“We have until the end of this decade to get rid of 40 percent of fossil fuel emissions,” Gioseffi added.

“Our executive director Sue Lippy has been very amicable to listening to our ideas regarding renovating,” she said. Lippy could not be reached for comment.

Prior to the committee being established, management had already started doing things like eliminating the use of paper products at some of its events, replacing plastic utensils, paper plates and plastic cups with compostable products instead.

The other members of the committee are: Mary Ellen Duran, Dan Duran, Tilly-Jo Emerson, Rick Jackson, Renee Jacobs, Cathy Jones, Bob Lonan, Rob Palmer, Jackie Herships, and Julie Towell.

  Maplewood, Winchester Gardens