A new educational non-profit organization has launched in Fayetteville! The Regenerative School, or Rē for short, builds on the work of Ashlei Laing and Felix ‘Skip’ Bivens who have been working in the community for several years as Empyrean Research.
“When we say regenerative, it means that together we can reconnect and build people, places and the land back up,” Bivens commented, adding:
“We’ve had a lot of success with Empyrean,” said Laing and Bivens, “but a lot of that work has been international in focus. With the Rē School, we want to focus more on issues and programs locally.”
The vision of the school is to address environmental, social and economic challenges through teaching, research and hands-on projects that build collaborative solutions to deep, persistent challenges, particularly those faced by rural communities.
“How things work now often leaves us really beat down and stretched. We want explore how to do things differently.”
Laing then discussed programs carried out earlier by Empyrean—the LOVE Micro-farm, the FLCWorks coworking space, the Vision Teams process— all focused on adding to the health and economic vitality of the community.
Expect more such activities from Rē, said Bivens and Laing, with a greater focus on education and learning-by doing: “We are excited to be continuing this work in the community, and more widely as well.”
Visit their website to learn more about Rē or to support with a donation.