It鈥檚 been nearly two years since the Jasper Sustainability Club for Youth was given the big news: a sustainable, net-zero classroom鈥攖he first of its kind鈥攚as coming to town, and it was because of the students鈥� words and passion that it was going to be planted in Jasper.
The modular classroom, which was supposed to arrive on the back of a truck in May 2013, was a prototype for a program called SEED: Sustainable Education Every Day. The building was being gifted to the students by Stacy Smedley, a Seattle-based sustainable designer who heard the club speak about its disappointing experience working with the Alberta government on the design of Jasper鈥檚 new high school. The group explained to the crowd of 1,000 green designers, architects and builders at the Living Futures Conference in Portland that despite their requests and efforts to create a net-zero school, the government ultimately said 鈥淣o.鈥�
Their story inspired Smedley and shortly after a partnership was born between the students and the designer.
Initially, the agreement was that the building would be a gift, with no funds coming from the students. But it wasn鈥檛 long before Smedley realized that dream wasn鈥檛 realistic.
Despite her efforts to fundraise in Seattle, she found herself running into endless roadblocks. It turned out companies and individuals in the United States didn鈥檛 want to give money to a project that would ultimately end up in a national park in Canada.
So, the students started fundraising, gathering $56,000 in no time flat.
But that wasn鈥檛 enough to cover the cost of the SEED and Smedley was still struggling on her end, so the prototype was sold to a Seattle school in order for her to pay her bills.
And yet, despite all of these delays and disappointments, the sustainability students and parents have remained optimistic, refusing to give up on this amazing opportunity.
As things stand, it will take the sale of 20 SEED buildings for Smedley to raise enough cash to purchase one building for Jasper, and the club is holding out hope that that will occur before September 2015.
To ensure the project鈥檚 success, the club and the parent group are working with Smedley to draft up a contract.
We hope that with that contract and with the club鈥檚 renewed optimism and momentum, these two years of disappointment will turn into a good news story, like the one we reported two years ago when the students were first told about the SEED.
Our students have worked far too hard and have had far too many disappointments not to have a payoff at the end of the day.
