Ground-breaking Launches Merry Lea's Collegiate Facility

Ceremony for Merry Lea’s Rieth Village Focuses on "Ground Caring"

Friends of Merry Lea, board members, local officials and officials from Goshen College joined in ground-breaking ceremonies for Reith Village on Wednesday afternoon, May 4 2005.

The event marked the beginning of Merry Lea’s long-awaited Collegiate Facility. The ceremony took place at the building site, which is adjacent to Merry Lea’s Farmstead near Wolf Lake in Noble County.

Dr. Luke Gascho, executive director of Merry Lea which is Goshen College’s 1100 acre environmental education facility, welcomed friends and guests and encouraged them to view the beginning of the project not as a ground breaking, but the beginning of ground healing.

“The word ‘groundbreaking’ suggests that human development must break the ground,” Gascho said, “but our project is intended to help efforts to heal and renew the earth.”
Gascho went on to trace the history of the land at Merry Lea from the time of the Native Americans to European settlement and agriculture to the present when the face of the land will change once again as this first phase of the Collegiate Facility takes shape.

Max Lake, educator and assistant chair of Merry Lea’s board of trustees, reflected on the ways in which the Collegiate Facility will provide hands-on, experiential education. Lake noted that the Collegiate Facility has the potential to enrich the educational resources available not only to residents of northeastern Indiana but nationally and internationally as well. Builders and planners can visit the facility to see what can be accomplished when there is a commitment to sustainability.

Mr. Lake went on to recognize the leadership of Luke Gascho and the extensive and expert work done by the nine members of Merry Lea’s board of directors.
Dr. John Yordy, Interim President of Goshen College, expressed gratitude for the generosity and the vision of Lee and Mary Jane Rieth who founded Merry Lea and after whom Rieth Village is named. Likewise, he thanked the many who have since been part of the vision and have supported the project financially.
Yordy cited the unique nature of the project that utilizes the environment as a context for learning.
“If we are to live justly and humanely, sustainability and stewardship are critical values that must be part of Christian liberal arts education in the 21st Century,” he observed.

Rieth Village, the $2-million initial phase of the project consists of two cottages that will provide housing for up to 32 students, and a third structure that will serve as the initial classroom and office building. The structures will be ready to welcome students in the spring of 2006.

Yordy said the village concept was intentionally adopted in order to integrate a student’s academic and social life in an environment that is stimulating both intellectually and spiritually.

Further, he noted that the environmental values that come out of a student’s experience in a village setting at Merry Lea also reflect the values embraced by Goshen College. Namely, that Rieth Village will foster a welcoming community characterized by people who are passionate learners and are Christ-centered. The skills acquired are intended to create servant leaders who are also compassionate peacemakers and global citizens.

The expected outcome, Yordy concluded, will be a sustainable, compassionate and prosperous future for both humans and all other parts of creation.

President Yordy thanked Merry Lea’s board of trustees and Goshen College’s board of directors for the vision and hard work that has culminated in the start of Rieth Village.

The ceremony utilized earth, compost and water, elements needed to nurture living things, as symbols of the nurturing required to bring a project like Rieth Village to fruition.

On a table near the podium were containers of soil collected from the building site and water pumped from the well at the farmstead nearby. Wheelbarrows on either side were filled with sifted compost prepared from Merry Lea’s garden.

Gascho first directed attention to the soil. He told about the diversity of soil types present at Merry Lea. Soil is foundational and precious to life. Though each type has particular strengths and limitations, the soil is capable of bringing forth growth if properly fertilized and watered. Just as diverse will be the students and their interests who reside in Rieth Village.

Soil also provides stability and rooted-ness; and in his remarks, Dr. Gascho drew the analogy of soil’s constancy with the human commitment that permits us to confidently root our future plans for Rieth Village and the Collegiate Facility.

Water, of course, is critical for life and growth, and Gascho described the emphasis that designers placed on the use of water in Rieth Village. The complex is designed to retain all storm water on site and permit it to soak back into the soil. Wastewater will be treated on site in specially designed wetlands. Rainwater stored in cisterns will be used to flush toilets.

Long time staff members Kerry Goodrich, Larry Yoder and Bill Minter then transferred the water first to a commemorative bowl that honored Lee and Mary Jane Rieth as founders and then to a watering can that made it ready for use.

Luke Gascho then led everyone in a litany that recounted the wealth imparted to soil as death and decay is transformed into life giving compost.

Following the litany, members of Merry Lea’s board of directors, officials from the college, members of the design team, staff members from Merry Lea, students and interns from Merry Lea, and friends and neighbors were invited to come forward and use a shovel or trowel to mix compost with the soil at the site. The freshly turned soil was then watered from the watering can.

Included among the Friends was Agnes Eigsti, a nonagenarian and long time supporter of Merry Lea, who vigorously wielded her trowel right along with the others.

Merry Lea’s environmental educator and volunteer coordinator Lisa Zinn accompanied this part of the ceremony with selections played on the hammered dulcimer.

The ceremony concluded with prayer led by Merry Lea’s coordinator of public programs, Jennifer Halteman Schrock. Her prayer expressed thanks for the planning and perseverance that has characterized the project. She asked for God’s blessing on the project and prayed that those to whom Merry Lea can be of service will find their way to us.

It wasn’t only humans who attended. During the ceremony, one participant spotted an osprey hovering out over the wetland. Others saw a warbling vireo, yellow warblers and a family of goslings.

“This is a mustard seed being planted,” Kevin Schrock observed as people came forward to spread the rich compost. “I don’t think any of us here today fully realize the significance of this event.
Holly Hunter, CEO of Hamilton Hunter Builders and general contractor for the project, said she has seldom experienced a groundbreaking so filled with meaning.

Those attending the ceremony rode to and from the site in a wagon pulled by Bill Knott’s team of Percheron draft horses. Knott’s firm is doing the earthmoving and site preparation.

“I really wanted this job,” he told Luke Gascho earlier. “It’s the kind that makes you think.”

Indeed, contractors will find this project to be different. It was designed using the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating system. LEED provides rigorous guidelines in areas such as energy and atmosphere, water efficiency, use of environmentally friendly materials and indoor air quality. The project is registered at the platinum level—the highest level of any registered project in Indiana.

For example, LEED guidelines specify that when the project’s contractor, Hamilton Hunter Builders of Fort Wayne, begin the construction process, they are limited in the weight of the equipment they can use. This is to avoid compacting the soil. They must also reseed any topsoil left exposed longer than two weeks with a cover crop to prevent erosion.

After the building is constructed, the surrounding site, which had been an eroded farm field overgrown with invasive species such as autumn olive, will be seeded with native plants.

Special features of the infrastructure will include a ten-kilowatt wind generator, a wastewater treatment system, solar water heaters and an integrated system for storm water management. The design team has also developed plans for a second phase that includes a 20,000-square foot academic building and four more cottages. Construction of phase two will begin in three to five years after an additional $6.5 million of capital is raised.

Merry Lea is constructing Rieth Village in order to accommodate new undergraduate and graduate-level study and research. Beginning June 2007, Merry Lea will offer ten-week summer tracks of courses in natural history and agroecology. Students from schools other than Goshen College are welcome to participate and transfer their credits.

“The diversity of ecosystems we have here at Merry Lea is a treasure that must be shared,” says Gascho.
“By enabling students to live on site, near the ecosystems they are studying, we will offer a unique immersion not available at most academic institutions.” Living in sustainable buildings will be an important part of the experience. Students will monitor their own energy usage, learn how wetland plants purify the water they use and discover the benefits of ground source heat pumps.

The consortium of architects, engineers and contractors working on Merry Lea’s facility include Morrison Kattman Menze, Inc. of Ft. Wayne, Hamilton Hunter Builders of Ft. Wayne, Conservation Design Forum of Elmhurst, IL, Eta Engineers of Champaign, IL and Natural Systems, Inc., Santa Fe, NM.

Merry Lea, created with the assistance of the Nature Conservancy and the generosity of Lee A. and Mary Jane Rieth, is owned and operated by Goshen College. For more information call Merry Lea at (260) 799-5869 merrylea@goshen.edu or contact Goshen College's News Bureau Director, Jodi H. Beyeler, at (574) 535-7572 or jodihb@goshen.edu.