Youth Venture

The Illick's Mill Project is a team devoted to restoring Illick's Mill and its surroundings to make it an environmental education center.

The Illick’s Mill Partnership for Environmental Education is an innovative consortium transforming the City of Bethlehem’s Illick’s Mill into a community environmental center. We are establishing a home for environmental action to preserve and protect the Monocacy Creek watershed and its abundant wildlife, and provide a model of environmental sustainability and technology.
Potentially, the Illick’s Mill Project will achieve the following: return a magnificent historical structure to public use only eight years after it was ready for demolition; utilize the restored Mill as a home for pertinent education that will prepare this generation to face the increasingly serious environmental issues we must solve locally, nationally, and globally; teach Pennsylvania and NCEE standards in English language arts through ongoing student effort to maintain the Mill and provide hands on Science curriculum for K-12 students through out the Lehigh Valley; and assist local school districts in meeting the state’s Standards for Environmental Science and Ecology. The project began in 2001, and will remain at Liberty High School until the Mill is deemed ready for occupation, and then will move -- possibly growing to two classes and two teachers -- to the Mill itself. At that point, its mission will change from creating an environmental education center to running one. The mission of the Mill -- perhaps the topic of a future student-generated vision statement -- will be to provide educational services to students in the Lehigh Valley and to community members. Although our memo of understanding is still in the planning stage, the Mill will run as a partnership facility, most likely of the BASD, Wildlands Conservancy, Monocacy Creek Watershed Association, and PA Audubon, and, of course, the young people who have led this effort.
If we happen to be one of the fifteen finalists chosen to receive the $10,000 grant, we plan to put the money to good use. The additional funding the Illick's Mill Project hopes to receive will help in not only one but many ways. The goal of the project is to both better the environment and educate those in the Lehigh Valley of the many environmental issues we face. To open Illick's Mill to the public, we still must raise an additional $100,000. Without this, the work and effort put into the Mill will go to waste and all attempts to impact those around us will be lost. With this money, we will be able to buy laptops which will help our project to communicate with those around us easier. Once we're done with work on the Mill, it will be open for local school children to come and spend a week doing hands-on work with us. While doing this work, they will document it online using the laptops so future classes can get an idea of what will be happening at the Mill when they arrive. It will help those of the Lehigh Valley to continually be informed and it will inspire younger students to want to be a part of the Mill Project when they're older. With the use of the laptops, we will be able to reach out to more people through our website. They will be informed of our upcoming events and happenings at the Mill. With the laptops, we will be able to communicate with more people than we ever have before. Therefore, our venture will continue to grow as we reach out to more people around the Lehigh Valley.