The world sometimes works in mysterious, wonderful ways. Meeting Eric Benson, Co-founder of Fresh Press and Re-nourish, was one of those times in which lives connect across great distances and then circle back oddly close to home. A few summers ago I found myself at a professional crossroads, as a grant I’d been working with for several years had run its course and I was looking for my next endeavor.
I ended up moving from Chicago to New York for a Design & Social Impact class. I learned a lot that summer, including an awareness of what I don’t know, which is an equally valuable life curriculum. It wasn’t until months, maybe a year, later that the idea for this website came to the forefront of my mind. One of my classmates from New York, but who was back in India at this time, had met Eric through her work and suggested that I connect with him. I said “of course!” and got the ball rolling, not knowing much about him or where he was based. Eric’s studio was just a few hours away and he was excited to share his knowledge and innovative paper-making processes, so we set up a time to meet.
In addition to teaching design in the classroom at the University of Illinois, he runs Fresh Press, a hands-on creative space where he and students make paper using discarded bio-mass from a campus farm. He also uses the space and his systems thinking research to fine-tune methods for reducing impact in the production process itself. He is meeting some of our environmental challenges head-on and building up the next generation of change-makers. His work is incredibly important and all of us could take a cue or two from his ambitious drive to create better, more regenerative systems.
