NORWAY — The Center for an Ecology-Based Economy has embarked on a fundraising campaign using Indiegogo, a popular internet site for nonprofit organizations to raise awareness and fund projects.

With the help of Grant Guiliano of Adaptive Media and local videographer Eli Gabrielson, CEBE was able to create a compelling, four-minute video to support the campaign. The video illustrates the organization’s mission of building a broad local movement to increase community resilience to climate, energy, and economic instability, while helping to restore ecosystem services.

The organization is running the campaign in conjunction with their one-year anniversary on Main Street, which will be on Earth Day. In the past year, CEBE hosted various events from film screenings and workshops to discussions on eco-villages, solar farms, community micro-lending and the economics of bicycling. Their goal has been to engage the community and raise awareness about how the local economy could rely more on local resources and ingenuity to create jobs and build community self-reliance.

In addition to helping CEBE maintain their Main Street, Norway office, the money raised through the campaign will help fund four local projects in collaboration with other area organizations. These projects relate to CEBE’s four focus areas of food, energy, shelter and transportation.

The four projects include: a renovation of the commercial kitchen at the Fare Share Co-op and connecting it to the adjacent CEBE space for better access to the community for food-related events, working with Healthy Oxford Hills and Norway Downtown to place bike racks throughout Norway and South Paris, as well as to create a community bike lending program, a collaboration with the Western Foothills Land Trust to build a traditional sugar house for the SAD 17 education program at Robert’s Farm Preserve, and the creation of a solar power station at the Alan Day Community Garden to power an irrigation system and barn lighting.

To learn more about CEBE and the Indiegogo campaign, you can visit www.ecologybasedeconomy.org or look for them on Indiegogo.com. The CEBE office is open to the public from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday, and for events.