Crowdfunding Campaign Launched For Swift Factory Community Signs

Press release from Community Solutions:

March 18, 2021

Community Solutions is working to install educational signage on the Swift Factory campus to tell the Swift Factory’s story as it relates to the neighborhood’s past, present, and future. The signage will draw passerby into the site and encourage neighbors to see the factory as a resource for them to use and enjoy!

For years, the Swift Factory was a closed campus, with frosted windows and locked doors to protect the gold leaf that was manufactured there. Community Solutions recently completed a project to transform the recently shuttered 100-year-old factory into an open and welcoming hub for entrepreneurship, jobs, and community.

The signage will tell the fascinating history of entrepreneurship, activism, and resilience at Swift and the neighborhood surrounding it, and it will highlight the environmental sustainability elements that are built into the factory’s design. The project will welcome community members of all ages to the Swift Factory, encouraging them to come and enjoy the campus and all it has to offer.

The project’s organizers are calling on the community to join this initiative by donating to a crowdfunding campaign or volunteering in the effort. If the campaign reaches its $7,500 goal by its fundraising deadline of May 10, the project will receive a matching grant of $7,500 from Sustainable CT’s Community Match Fund, which is an innovative funding resource for public, community-led sustainability projects. For project details and to donate, please visit: www.patronicity.com/swiftfactory.

Sustainable CT is an initiative of Eastern Connecticut State University’s Institute for Sustainable Energy that inspires, supports, and recognizes sustainability action by towns and cities statewide. The Community Match Fund — supported by the Smart Seed Fund, Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation and the Connecticut Green Bank —provides a dollar-for-dollar match to donations raised from the community, doubling local investment in projects. Anyone can lead a project and ideas can be proposed at any time.

"Through the Community Match Fund, we aim to put residents at the forefront of creating positive, impactful change," said Abe Hilding-Salorio, community outreach manager for Sustainable CT. "Match Fund projects are community led and community funded, demonstrating the power of people working together to make change in their communities."

Have a great idea for a public project in your community? Contact Sustainable CT at hildingsalorioa@easternct.edu.

This press release was produced by Community Solutions. The views expressed here are the author's own.