Hastings mayor Sandra Hazlehurst, left, and Environment Centre Hawke's Bay manager Emma Horgan-Heke in front of the environment centre's new home on Southland Rd, Hastings. Photo / Warren Buckland
Hastings mayor Sandra Hazlehurst, left, and Environment Centre Hawke's Bay manager Emma Horgan-Heke in front of the environment centre's new home on Southland Rd, Hastings. Photo / Warren Buckland
The Environment Centre Hawke's Bay will be moving into new premises this month but still needs more community aid to keep running as they cut electronic waste recycling services.
The Environment Centre Hawke's Bay was given notice several months ago that its previous premises at the Tremains Community Hub buildingwould be demolished and they would have to vacate.
They began efforts to fundraise $250,000 in total - $100,000 for the building lease and outgoings and $150,000 for three new employees to provide recycling and climate change action education and behavioural change advice.
They have raised just over $20,000 through crowdfunding and have got the support of local business Douglas - Outdoor & Textile Innovation donating a portion of their profits to the environment centre for a month.
Emma Horgan-Heke, chief executive for charity Sustaining Hawke's Bay Trust and manager of the Environment Centre, said the Environment Centre would move into its new building at 201 Southland Rd in Hastings on August 14.
She said they are still actively looking for funding.
"We're still working on the funding side of things," Horgan-Heke said.
She said the Hastings District Council has been one of the Environment Centre's biggest supporters and the Environment centre was in discussions with other councils about funding.
She said the environment centre was going to no longer be taking electronic waste as they could no longer afford the cost.
"We've been losing $20,000 to $30,000 dollars a year on that for the last two or three years because we don't receive any funding for it apart from what we charge the general public.
"We'll still take specialist recycling, so that is all of the stuff at the front that we recycled, the 21 streams of specialist recycling and we will also broaden what we do.
"The new building would be more like a climate action hub so people can come to learn more about climate action and what they can do about food resilience, all the things in our strategic plan."
She said there would be a studio at the new premises they can use for workshops and training related to climate change and waste reduction.
