The Environmental Club held a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the opening of their new Hoop House, which will be used to grow food for the Pace, at the Environmental Center on Fri., Feb. 3.

The idea for the Hoop House originally came from an Alumni during 2016’s spring semester.Its inception began after the Environmental Club came into existence and received funding from the university.

“The whole idea for this Hoop House project came to be when a now graduated student spoke with one of the professors here at the nature center last spring,” Environmental Center Director Angelo Spillo said. “So the Environmental Club was founded, worked out a deal, and the university donated a couple thousand dollars to get the project underway. They worked on constructing it this past Fall and completed it not too long ago.”

A Hoop House is like a greenhouse, but instead being made out of glass, it is made out of plastic. The club plans to use it to grow food for the Pace community to eat. They hope to grow tomatoes and the various other toppings used at the Setters Grill station in Kessel.

“We plan on growing a variety of fruits and vegetables to share with the Kessel Student Center so that other students can have fresh locally grown food to eat,” said Environmental Club president Elizabeth Piper Phillips. “We also know that at least one registered class next semester will be using the Hoop House and hopefully more to come.”

Freshman John Watson believes this is a great idea for Pace, however, he fears it will be difficult to maintain.

“I think that’s a great idea and all, but I’m hesitant with putting all our effort behind it, what with needing a group of people to inspect the food and maintain the greenhouse,” Watson said. “If it does work, though, that could be yet another cool thing about Pace: we grow and eat our own produce.”

The event was later brought inside for refreshments and to show off the new environmental classroom on campus installed not that long ago.

The club itself has been known to hold events for the community that encourages the cleaning up of the ecosystem in the local area. It has been doing so for two years now and plans to continue doing so in the future.

The club plans to host more events in the future to help promote the importance of protecting the environment at the new facility. One such event that they mentioned was a hoe-down next fall.