Rachel Yeates, Campus Carrier News Editor
Local non-profit Trails for Recreation and Economic Development (TRED) is working this year to make greater connections to Berry.
TRED is a Rome-based organization that works to promote environmental awareness and healthy living by building and maintaining bike and walking trails.
Last semester, the Bonner Scholars program made a connection with TRED’s president Julie Smith and looked into TRED as a temporary worksite.
“Amanda and Laurie (Amanda Law, Bonner Scholars program coordinator, and Laurie Chandler, director of the Bonner Scholars) saw that TRED had something to offer and that a Bonner could offer something equally as good to TRED,” Smith said.
This August, junior Emily Melchior began work as a permanent Bonner volunteer at TRED.
“They’re so passionate about what they do,” Melchior said, speaking of TRED staff as well as workers at Cycle Therapy, the downtown bike shop co-owned by Smith. “Not only with the bikes, but with this idea of promoting a more cohesive environment for everything like animals, plants, people, everything, because it all is interconnected.”
Melchior works for TRED out of Cycle Therapy as well as remotely.
Smith is excited about working with the Bonner Scholar program.
“That’s the nice thing about having a Bonner to be a voice of TRED on campus, to build excitement (for students) and also for staff and faculty who are there and who are Rome residents,” Smith said.
TRED has also been working to connect Berry campus trails to those in Rome.
“The City of Rome came to TRED and asked if TRED would like to partner with the city on the application to the SPLOST (Special Purpose Local-Option Sales Tax) committee to add 3.3 miles of trails to the Heritage Trail Network,” Smith said. “Of course we said yes, and so that’s where Berry comes in.
“City Manager at the time John Bennett and then assistant city manager Sammy Rich were instrumental … in making (Berry administration) see the benefits of connecting Berry students to downtown. And I think that was already in the works kind of behind the scenes. Some eyes were opening about maybe Berry doesn’t need to be a bubble.”
In connecting Berry with Rome, Rome too can benefit from Berry’s trails.
Dillon Patterson, a junior and avid biker and runner, thinks it is important for people to use the trails available to them.
“I think it’s good for people to get out into the woods,” he said. “When people get out into the woods and appreciate the woods, they don’t ruin the woods.”
Patterson would like to see better maps of Berry trails as well as non-damaging trail markings.
He also spoke of the importance of trails in helping preserve nature.
“Trails keep human impact in the woods very minimal,” Patterson said.
They keep litter “condensed to the side of the trails” as opposed to spread over a larger area, Patterson continued.
Trails can also minimize one’s carbon footprint.
“Trails, if put in the right place, give people an alternative to using their cars,” Smith said. “We’re such a car culture.”
Melchior talked about her frustrations with people driving such short distances on campus when they could walk or bike and pointed out the benefits of non-motorized commuting.
“There’s a lot of cons to using motorized vehicles: environmental health, physical health – they’re really economically unsustainable,” Melchior said. “By promoting a trail network that fosters cycling, hiking, running, walking, whatever, we’re trying to increase the economic well-being of the whole community.”
Students can be involved in TRED’s upcoming projects.
The next event in their Lucky 7 race series will be on Nov. 16 at Jackson Hill across from Steak ‘n Shake on Turner McCall Blvd., and next semester, TRED will be hosting an environmentally-themed art show featuring work from local artists and Berry students.