The Sugar Bush Foundation
Since 2005, the Sugar Bush Foundation has funded partnerships between Ohio University and community organizations that restore the environment, strengthen local food systems, and grow a resilient economy. Within every project, OHIO students are engaged in the region, working on real problems, learning to love this place. The Sugar Bush Foundation is a supporting organization of The Ohio University Foundation.
What We Value
Watch the videos below to learn about our core commitments.
Supporting Campus and Community Partnerships
Engaging Students
Building on Regional Assets
Restoring the Environment
Creating Replicable Models
Current Projects
Habitat Social Enterprise
Explore what Habitat for Humanity does, and the conception of its new construction social enterprise which responds to needs in the region for additional construction services for nonprofits and other programs serving those with the most acute needs in our region.
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Appalachian Ohio Zero Waste Initiative
Waste 360 featured the Zero Waste Initiative. Hear from Ed Newman, zero waste director of Rural Action, Hylie Voss, president of the Sugar Bush Foundation and Elissa Welch speak about how they are turning waste into an asset.
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Acid Mine Drainage Paint Pigment
In Appalachian Ohio, many streams are polluted with acid mine drainage running out of abandoned coal mines. True Pigments and OHIO partners worked for a decade on solutions for large seeps, successfully restoring seven miles of stream, but at the largest of these seeps, a new solution was needed.
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Appalachian Food and Culture Initiative
The Farm to Ohio Working Group strengthens our regional food system through institutional procurement of locally grown food and develops our regional food network. Close collaboration between OHIO, Rural Action, and Community Food Initiatives has reduced many infrastructure barriers to institutional buying of locally grown produce and has increased equitable access to local food on campus.
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Ohio’s Winding Road
Ohio’s Winding Road is a network of communities helping each other market creative experiences based in cultural history, outdoor adventure & environmental learning; the arts, local foods, education, and authentic amenities such as shopping, dining, and lodging. The collaboration between Ohio's Hill Country Heritage and the Center for Community Engagement helps to grow Southeast Ohio’s experience economy by developing and marketing natural, historical and cultural assets.
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Creative Abundance Model
In 1998, Passion Works began as a collaborative community studio housed within a sheltered workshop where people with and without developmental differences made art together. The studio became a 501(c)3 non-profit in 2018, and it remains a trailblazer in creating integrated settings where people investigate their own talents and interests while participating in community-based programming and creative employment opportunities.
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The videos linked above were produced by the Barbara Geralds Institute for Storytelling and Social Impact.
