Thank You, Greenbelt Community Foundation

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Thank You, Greenbelt Community Foundation

There are many individuals to thank for the grant we received this weekend, but collectively they go by the name Greenbelt Community Foundation. Not just the GCF Advisory Board, but obviously also the many donors. Over the last nine years, Greenbelt citizens, businesses, and government organizations have contributed $330,000 to the GCF to create an endowment for future grants and to seed the community with $135,000 in immediate support for local organizations and their projects. If you have an idea on how to improve life in Greenbelt, consider asking the GCF to help. Start by reviewing their grant application information; the next deadline is April 15.

Please help the GCF continue their vital role as they celebrate their 10th year with an anniversary challenge to identify activities that are creative, actionable, and that foster One Greenbelt. You can provide the GCF with financial support in many ways, please see their information on how to donate.

Last fall we received a donation that funded the purchase of our first 3D printer. With this generous grant from the GCF, we plan to add a vinyl cutter, a CNC router, and a plastic recycling system.

The vinyl cutter is an old technology, but one that is well known for its use in making stickers, signs, banners and other products for various projects. We look forward to using it to support our promotional needs, but from our MakerSpace community we are looking for a few young entrepreneurs who want to accept the challenge of creating a small business. 

The CNC router is another type of cutting machine. Unlike the 3D printer which adds materials (melted plastic) to build up a creation, the CNC router takes the more traditional path of subtracting material from a starting block of material (usually wood). You can do this, of course, by hand. The “CNC” aspect is to use a computer program to control the process. Thus both devices share the prerequisite knowledge of how to use CAD, computer aided design software to take an idea and convert it into a design that can be converted into computer control of the equipment.

Speaking of 3D printing and materials, our purchase of a plastic recycling system will allow us (psst, another business opportunity…) to take plastic milk cartons and convert them into the rolls of plastic filament used by 3D printers. Not only is the resulting filament less than 1% of the retail price (!!!), but this method of recycling uses up to 90% less energy than our current recycling program.

We’re looking forward to some great projects, and a couple of new businesses, spring from this new equipment. Again, thank you Greenbelt Community Foundation staff and donors for making this possible!

By | 2015-03-24T12:46:19-04:00 March 24th, 2015|Front Page, Fundraising|Comments Off on Thank You, Greenbelt Community Foundation

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