Outreach Vehicle Fundraiser

As of 9/7/2023, we have raised $6,500 - but we have a long way to go.

At ENP we believe an outreach vehicle should not be a huge drain on a small nonprofit organization's resources or the resources of our shared environment.

We choose to drive vehicles that are easy on the natural environment that we are working to understand, protect, conserve, and educate you all about.

We choose to drive vehicles that we can fuel with "homegrown" renewable energy produced by our classroom solar array when around the region, and domestically-produced electric fuel when on the road.

This is why, since 2013, ENP has been driving 100% electric vehicles as our primary outreach vehicles.

Our first Outreach EV was a 2012 Nissan Leaf SL with 73 all-electric miles of driving range. Read the LEAF's story on our EV Blog.

Our Leaf served us well for 6+ years and ~78,000 miles and then, in late 2019, we EVolved to a 2019 Chevrolet Bolt EV with a real-world driving range of up to ~250 miles - a mighty improvement over the Leaf. Thanks, Bob and BBSI!

We USE our Bolt EV and we LOVE our Bolt EV and we hope to drive it as long as possible (hopefully at least a decade or more). Read the latest Bolt Report on our EV Blog for more on the story and status of the "Mighty Bolt" as we lovingly call her.

Our 2nd and newest Outreach Vehicle is our mobile outreach classroom that we call

the SS NaSA PoD.

This is short for

Science Steve's Nature and Science Adventure Pod of Discovery.

We use the PoD to bring our programming to local schools, camps, and other organizations in an outdoor, well-ventilated, environment.

THANK YOU TO Asher and family, Lake Toxaway Charities, Bob and BBSI, Jim & Alice, Mom, Marian,

Red Dog Welding, and Everyone who worked with us to make all this awesome possible!!!

Learn all about the SS NaSA PoD.

We dearly love our Mighty Bolt EV, and it is the perfect vehicle for our daily driver/commuting needs - but sadly, it is unable to pull the SS NaSA PoD to our outreach programs in our community and region.

The foundation of the PoD is a 1995 Casita RV. The state-of-the-art solar panels, their aluminum and steel support structure, Lithium-Iron Phosphate battery bank, and related microgrid support equipment, as well as the ENP educational materials and education animals and their portable habitats, have added considerable weight to the Casita which now weighs in at 3600+ lbs. - therefore, it requires a powerful vehicle to tow it safely to our outreach programming events.

Currently, and out of necessity, ENP is using a personal vehicle - a gas-guzzling 2013 Honda Pilot that is on its last legs, er, wheels – to pull the PoD to outreach programs.

But using the old Honda to tow the PoD was not the way it was supposed to happen. Our need for finding support for a new vehicle was determined rather suddenly when a promised donation fell through - a donation that was to be used for the purchase of an all-electric outreach and utility vehicle whose primary purpose would be to pull our mobile outreach classroom – The PoD. When the donor’s financial situation unexpectedly changed, we suddenly found ourselves in a rather large vehicular conundrum with a wonderfully new and magical mobile outreach classroom - but without a reliable, safe, and educational outreach vehicle to tow it.

Due to this vehicular conundrum, our current tow vehicle for The PoD is the before-mentioned Honda Pilot which is not well suited for towing something as heavy as the PoD. The Honda struggles to pull the PoD up hills and is very expensive for ENP to operate. Its use as a tow vehicle for the PoD also undermines one of the core messages of the ENP mission statement:

"... the promotion and expansion of domestically produced, distributed, renewable energy resources, as well as electric vehicles and their infrastructure..."

This is why we feel that the Honda must be replaced with a new or lightly used tow vehicle, and we would like this new utility vehicle to be an all-electric truck or SUV.

This all-electric tow vehicle will take the place of the Honda and be able to tow our mobile outreach classroom anywhere in our service area without issue. It will also serve as a utility vehicle in our daily organizational operations and in our future Earthshine Nature Community Assistance Program (ENCAP).

But why electric?

Operational Cost: In addition to being far more environmentally friendly than any other available choice (and therefore supporting our mission statement), electric vehicles (EVs) are far less expensive to fuel and maintain than traditional "legacy" vehicles. By using all-electric outreach vehicles fueled primarily by electricity generated by the ENP classroom's student-built solar array - they become almost entirely free to fuel and drive. ENP can then redirect the thousands of dollars per year - that would have been used for gas/oil/maintenance on a legacy vehicle such as the old Honda - into enhanced outreach programming offerings and volunteer service projects in the local and regional communities.

STEM Education: An essential aspect of using an EV to tow the PoD is that it will serve as an outstanding teaching tool when coupled with the PoD and its solar-powered microgrid. During outreach programs, the PoD's all-electric tow vehicle may be charged from the PoD's solar microgrid to demonstrate the practical value of renewable energy and electric vehicle technologies, and how they may play a part in helping everyone become more energy-independent by using domestically-produced renewable energy sources. The pairing of the PoD with an all-electric tow vehicle will be yet another outstanding STEM teaching tool in ENP's environmental education tool belt.

The SS NaSA PoD: Getting back to the issue of towing the PoD, many thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours of volunteer time, from some of ENP’s most generous project supporters and volunteers, have been invested in this unique and magical project and the PoD is now complete, and in service to the WNC community. Since the PoD’s completion, ENP has presented many educational and inspiring outreach programs to thousands of people at camps, schools, festivals, and more, with the PoD performing perfectly and exactly as we engineered it…but sadly, as outlined before, the vehicle that ENP has been using to pull the PoD is its primary limiting factor. Therefore, getting back to our first need and the prime reason for this fundraising campaign - electric vehicles have far more torque and power than traditional vehicles - so towing the PoD to any of our outreach programs within our local mountainous community, and our entire service area, will not be an issue.

Our future Community Assistance Program (ENCAP): Once we acquire an all-electric outreach and utility vehicle we will establish this program and use this very capable vehicle - as well as the SS NaSA PoD - to provide volunteer assistance to organizations, individuals, and families in need within our local community. We will support the following needs and more; transport of home/farm/garden/grocery/food/water supplies, etc. Access/use of truck-type utility vehicles. Storm/disaster assistance. Emergency or remote temporary solar-microgrid power sources. Support local service organizations at events. Multi-day loan to remote construction sites (with priority to nonprofit projects).

Environmental service projects ENCAP will support; environmental and wildlife conservation, study, rescue, and monitoring. Environmental and historical cleanups and restoration initiatives. Invasive species removal. NOTE: Due to the inherent liability involved, this service will not include or allow any individuals or groups receiving volunteer assistance from the ENCAP program to drive or be a passenger in any of the ENP outreach/utility vehicles.

The ENCAP program will be possible due to the fact that electric vehicles are essentially giant rolling batteries/microgrids with integrated 120/240 volt AC and 5-12 volt DC/USB electric power provisioning systems. This allows them to be used as mobile power sources/generators providing mobile and/or emergency power to almost anywhere needed by simply plugging in an extension cord or USB-powered device.

As our future electric utility vehicle and the existing SS NaSA PoD will and are fueled via locally-sourced, solar-generated electricity - they are both free to fuel and drive. Therefore, we will transfer these massive cost savings to the recipients of ENCAP by providing this service free of charge to those individuals and organizations in need within our community.

To make the ENCAP program a reality we will partner with other local nonprofits and community service/aid organizations as well as environmental conservation organizations, colleges, universities, and agencies in order to connect with and bring this service to those in need.

Therefore, our most immediate pressing need for the future of our outreach programming, wildlife rescue, rehabilitation & conservation, renewable energy/EV education, and future community assistance program, is the acquisition of an all-electric truck-type outreach vehicle with greater towing/hauling capabilities, better all-weather/all-terrain surface driving capabilities, electric power provisioning capabilities, and a far lower operating cost than the PoD's current tow vehicle.

For all these reasons our goal for a third (and final) outreach vehicle for ENP would be a fully electric truck or SUV. We have looked at all the available options available to us today and determined that the best fit for our programming needs would be any of the following

Ford F-150 Lightning - Lariat Package, the Rivian R1T, or R1S.

The Tesla Cybertruck(when available) is ENP director Steve's first choice and is now a wonderful option since the first unit was produced on Steve's birthday - July 15th!

Any of these vehicles is more than capable to pull the SS NaSA PoD and will allow us to complete all of the tasks we need to complete on a daily basis. Below are some ideas I have Photoshopped of what a future ENP outreach vehicle might look like pulling the SS NaSA PoD (not exactly to scale :-)

Whichever vehicle we are able to source will not only be used as the tow vehicle for the PoD, but it will also be used as a wildlife rescue/transport vehicle, for running errands around town/the region, for toting essential supplies* to/from our classroom, and as a community assist vehicle for our future ENCAP program working to help those animals, organizations, families, and individuals in need.

*Education animal habitats and materials such as cages/aquaria, as well as fencing, straw/hay, and gardening/construction materials such as mulch, manure, gravel, rocks, logs/lumber, pipes/conduit, fencing, farm animals, etc.

Being AWD/4WD it will also allow us access to our remotely-located classroom/office in all weather conditions as well as occasional longer-distance educational road trips to wonderful wild places in western North Carolina and beyond (these excursions will always be well documented on our YouTube channel).

You might be asking: "Why not just purchase a lower-priced, traditional internal combustion engine-powered, vehicle?"

Answer: As stated before, our 501c3 mission statement does not allow it:

"We function as a collaborative entity seeking to partner with other like-minded organizations in Transylvania County and beyond, with the goals of wildlife and nature conservation, education and exploration, nature and science awareness, and the promotion and expansion of domestically-produced, distributed, renewable energy resources, and electric vehicles and their support infrastructure."

Driving a petroleum distillate-powered legacy vehicle would be the antithesis of the current and future mission of Earthshine Nature Programs.

Again, we at ENP believe a vehicle should not be a significant drain on a small nonprofit organization's monetary resources, thereby taking funds out of the hands of the primary purpose of the organization. Nor should a vehicle be a drain or detriment to our shared natural environment - and on the future our children will call home. Driving a traditional legacy vehicle might be lower in initial cost and a quicker, cheaper way out - but it would also bring with it huge yearly fuel and maintenance costs as well as lasting environmental impact costs - all of these things would add up to become far more expensive to ENP and to everything and everyone moving forward.

Going deep and breaking out the numbers: if we continue to use a traditional gas-powered vehicle to pull the PoD to our outreach programming events, make supply runs, and occasional long-distance educational road trips, etc. - it will cost us an average of ~$75 each time we fill up the fuel tank - and because it averages only ~10-12mpg when pulling the PoD, we would need to fill up the tank VERY often. However, by using an all-electric tow vehicle with fuel costs of ZERO (its battery will be charged primarily by the ENP classroom solar array ) - that ~$75 worth of hydrocarbon-based fuel that would have been burned up in a few hundred miles (and polluted the atmosphere, our health, and future in the process), will not happen - and that $75 will stay available to ENP to be used for more important things such as outreach programming, student education projects, classroom and education animal habitat maintenance and improvements, and our wildlife rehabilitation and nature conservation education efforts.

Therefore, we at ENP strive to only use electric outreach vehicles that are free to fuel via our classroom solar array, serve as powerful educational tools for our students and outreach programming participants, are very low maintenance, and are easy on wildlife and the natural environment that we are working so hard to understand, protect, conserve, and educate you all about. Again, this is why, since 2013, ENP has primarily been driving 100% electric vehicles.

Please consider assisting us in finding the support needed to acquire an all-electric truck or SUV to complete our all-electric outreach vehicle "fleet."

As of 9/7/2023, we have raised $6,500 - so we have a long way to go.

Visit our donate page or our GoFundMe campaign for ways you can support us. If you know someone who may be able to help us make this happen for our small, volunteer-owned, and operated nonprofit organization, please do share this information with them. THANK YOU from the crew at ENP!