At STARworks, it’s about the ‘experience’

The STARworks Center for Creative Enterprise in Star is the home of Central Park NC, a regional sustainable development organization.Director Nancy Gottovi shies away from the term business incubator, instead calling STARworks a business development lab.

“We use a variety of strategies to partner with our businesses,” she said. “And we are developing a number of social enterprises under our non-profit umbrella.”

One such venture is STARworks Ceramics. It supplies over 100 types of materials and tools for local potters and has just added a line of local clay bodies using Montgomery, Randolph and Moore County clays. The business also offers a Clay Experience Workshop designed for people who are new to pottery. The two-hour class gives participants the opportunity to make a simple piece of pottery that will serve as a souvenir of the experience and the culture of the region. Workshops can be scheduled for three to 20 participants.

STARworks Glass offers glassblowing classes, workshops, and demonstrations. Three-hour workshops are available for beginners and glass hobbyists. Hot glass workshops are scheduled the second Saturday of each month, with students producing glass flowers and paperweights. Fusing classes take place monthly on a rotating schedule. Students learn to cut flat glass, arrange it into patterns and fuse their creation in a kiln. Two-day classes are available for more advanced glass artists.
STARworks Garden is a micro-eco farm with a goal to promote environmentally responsible growing methods, spread the habit of local eating, introduce children and adults to backyard gardening and healthy ecosystems and set an example in recycling.

It provides local families with fresh sustainably grown and seasonal vegetables, herbs and cut flowers through Community Supported Agriculture and offer workshops and school programs in sustainable agriculture. The newest venture is STARworks Biofuels, which will soon be a fully-operational plant producing biodiesel, a renewable fuel produced from domestic resources such a waste vegetable oils from area restaurants. A cooperative is being formed for those who want to purchase the biodiesel for their vehicles.

STARworks is just one piece of the Central Park NC strategy, which focuses on small businesses development complementary to heritage and culture of the region. A visitor guide and website detail the many outdoor recreation and heritage tourism opportunities across the eight counties. Both also feature more than 200 locally owned businesses that serve visitors to the region.

“We believe in place-based business development,” Gottovi said. “Relying on the rich heritage and natural resources of the region, we are working to develop sustainable businesses that will draw visitors from the surrounding urban areas and beyond.”
For more information, visit the website at www.centralparknc.org
or call 910.428.9001.