A library labyrinth was made possible by Sustainable Monroe Township, which worked with a local Girl Scout to make it happen.
With the ever-growing presence of climate change and recent lifts of EPA restrictions, an independent group of environmental activists in the township wants to promote a healthy environment by taking things one step at a time.
Sustainable Monroe Township is led by Patrick McDevitt Jr., who created it in 2013, after he was notified by the township that it could not dedicate the time to further the group’s mission.
“They were like, ‘Go ahead on your own,'” McDevitt recalled. “‘We can’t really be a part of it or integrate it on our own thing, because we’re busy and we’re doing stuff.’ Blah, blah, blah.
“Sustainable Monroe was formed under the town,” he added, “but it’s not an official board or commission. It was my thing I was running with cooperation from the town.”
Sustainable Monroe Township operates under the same guidelines as Sustainable Jersey, a state-wide group dedicated to environmental protection. The township group got a bronze certification from the latter, meaning it has “made a commitment to sustainability and has succeeded in implementing the first significant steps toward it, according to Sustainable Jersey’s website.
The township version of the organization works with Tri-County Sustainability, a three-county intiative of environmentalists in Burlington, Camden and Gloucester counties. The township group has shrunk in recent years, with McDevitt and a few volunteers now dedicating time to the Monroe library’s Labyrinth, constructed in 2020 in partnership with Girl Scout Samantha Brown and Troop 61778.
Sustainable Monroe hosts a monthly sound session at the library that is followed by walking the labyrinth.
“This is one giant open field and a little more than half of it is made up of the community garden,” McDevitt explained. “Once we did that, there was this empty space at the end, and we were talking about what we could do with it. I pitched the idea of a labyrinth from personal exposure and interest and found out there’s actually a worldwide labyrinth society, and one of the representatives lives in Pitman.
“I got in touch with her (the representative) and began the process of mapping out the idea, and we ended up working with a local Girl Scout.”
That Scout was Samantha Brown, whose work on the project was part of her Gold Award project, the highest rank and honor in the Girl Scouts. She helped raised funding and worked with Sustainable Monroe to construct the labyrinth, despite COVID restrictions at the time.
“We just open it up to the community,” McDevitt noted. “We kind of look at it as a community resource. It’s available 24/7, publicly owned land. Anyone can come and walk it any time.”
Along with his Sustainable Monroe Township work, McDevitt is part of Bike Gloucester County, the New Jersey Chapter of the Bike Coalition of Philadelphia. It focuses on the positive effects of biking on roads and trails. He also works with the South Jersey Electric Vehicle Club, a team connected to Plug In America that educates the public on electric vehicles.
