Help Us Create Resilience in our Community
Tax deductible
The Story of this Campaign - the short version:
The mission/purpose of Earthshine Nature Programs(501c3):
Earthshine Nature Programs(ENP) was founded in 2010 by naturalist and Executive Director Steve O'Neil.
Our first and continuing mission: Way back in 2010 we formed ENP to provide unique education opportunities for everyone that will foster a lasting interest, respect, love, and hopefully, greater conservation of wildlife, wild places, and the fragile natural environment that supports us all.
Our newest mission, and the reason for this campaign:
The ENCAP Program. ENCAP = Earthshine Nature Community Assistance Program. Our goal with this new program: Provide better resilience to those in need in our community during times of need.
We will do this by constructing a mobile solar-microgrid "Power Bee" trailer and several smaller "Portable Power Pods."
The Power Bee Trailer
This trailer will have some similarities to the units pictured within this GoFundMe Campaign page, but it will also differ in a few unique ways with the goal of making it highly versatile and therefore available to a larger number of individuals and organizations in need of its services.
The next two photos show how the interior of the trailer may appear.
A mobile micro grid deployed and providing assistance to a community in need.
Our Power Bee trailer will function very similarly to those pictured above. It will provide the following free services to those individuals and organizations in need during times of great need as well as during times of good fortune.
1. Electricity when the power grid is offline or where no grid exists. We will provide one 240 Volt AC power point, multiple 120 volt AC power points, many 5 volt DC charge points, and an onboard 240 volt EV charging station (EVSE), as well as extension cords to distribute power where it is needed.
2. We will provide internet connectivity through a Starlink mini terminal when the land-based networks are offline. WiFi will extend approximately 50 - 75' outward from trailer.
3. We will provide clean drinking water made directly from air - w/canteen filling tap.
4. We will provide an environmental monitoring network including: live 4K camera system as well as a weather/environmental/atmospheric particulate monitoring station.
5: We will provide an awning with lighted workstation, table, chairs.
Portable Power Pods (3Po's)
These units consist of a rolling tool tote full of batteries and an inverter that will provide 120 volt AC and 5 volt DC power to charge any mobile devices, power laptop computers, and personal medical equipment. It will also provide internet access and WIFI via a Starlink mini terminal.
The prototype Portable Power Pod (3Po 1.0)
In November of 2024 I constructed the first of the 3Po's. Since then it has been in the test phase and I am happy to say that it works perfectly. It has been able to silently and effortlessly power all my portable devices, and my CPAP device for over a week. It powered my refrigerator for almost 2 days without needing a charge. Below is a photo of the first 3Po unit.
The 3Po 1.0 with all its parts showing. The silver structure is the battery bank consisting of 7 Nissan LEAF EV battery cells. The Blue device is a DC to AC power inverter.
After we have the ENCAP program built out and online, our primary service area will be any location in Western North Carolina in need including but not limited to our primary service area of: Transylvania, Buncombe, Henderson, Jackson, Haywood, Polk, Rutherford, and surrounding counties, as well as upstate South Carolina, East Tennessee, and Northeast Georgia.
With ENCAP we are collaborating with other organizations in our region that have similar goals of helping make our communities more resilient to severe weather events, grid connectivity, and water supply outages, and other natural disasters.
These organizations include but are not limited to;
Please consider helping us make this program a reality for our community by donating and sharing this campaign today.
How close are we to our goals with the ENCAP program?
In November of 2024, we received an amazing donation from Bob Harris of Black Bear Solar Institute: enough slightly used Nissan Leaf EV lithium ion batteries (a $21,000 value) to allow us to build our first Power Bee trailer with a 60 kW battery pack as well as several Power Pods - each with 3.5 kW capacity. Since the batteries are one of the largest costs, we are well on our way to making the ENCAP program a reality for our community. We just need your help to make it happen.
Please consider assisting us in finding the support needed to construct this most needed solar powered microgrid trailer and several portable power pods.
Also, if you know someone who may be interested in helping us make this program happen for our small, volunteer-owned and operated, nonprofit organization and therefore our wonderful mountain community - please do share this information with them.
Steve and some of his awesome ENP volunteers with the PoD in the background at the LEAF festival.
THANK YOU from the crew at ENP!
The long version with all the details:
In early 2022, with the help of some dedicated volunteers - and several very generous donors, ENP realized a dream: to develop a mobile outreach classroom system that would carry our animal ambassadors and educational materials to programming locations across the region.
This mobile outreach classroom experience connects all of ENP's environmental and wildlife conservation teachings with our overarching renewable energy education theme. It contains a state-of-the-art rooftop solar array coupled with a battery storage and energy management system - therefore, it is a mobile microgrid. This powerful solar-microgrid system not only provides electricity to operate all of the mobile classroom's education animal and human habitat systems, educational tools, and climate control systems –but it is also a wonderful, STEM teaching tool for all our outreach program participants and other students.
It was one of my past students (THANKS ASHER!) who inspired the name for this magical mobile classroom:
The SS NaSA PoD (Science Steve's Nature and Science Adventure Pod of Discovery), or just the PoD, for short.
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 project, and it is now complete and operational.
Since the PoD’s completion, ENP has presented many exciting and inspiring outreach programs at camps, schools, festivals, and more, with the PoD performing perfectly and exactly as we engineered it.
The deeper details: The foundation of the SS NaSA PoD is a 1995 Casita RV. The state-of-the-art solar modules (panels) and their aluminum and steel support structure, LiFePo storage batteries, and related microgrid support equipment, as well as the ENP educational materials and education animals - have added considerable weight to the Casita, which now weighs in fully loaded at 3600+ lbs. - therefore, it now requires a powerful vehicle to safely tow it.
Currently, out of necessity, we are using one of director Steve's personal vehicles - a gas-guzzling 2013 Honda Pilot that is on its last legs, er, wheels – to pull the PoD to our outreach programs.
• In the future we will use a donated electric truck to tow the PoD and the Power Bee trailer.
• Electric vehicles have far more torque than legacy vehicles - so towing the PoD and the Power Bee mobile microgrid trailers to any of our outreach programs or anyone in need in our region - will not be an issue.
Jim and Steve teaching a group of students all about solar, renewable energy, and electric vehicles.
The PoD and our other portable/mobile micro-grids will also will create many wonderful STEM education opportunities including but not limited to:
- Real-time demonstration of how a solar energy system may be used to charge an electric vehicle (EV).
- How microgrids and some EVs are used in everyday life and in emergency power applications.
- Solar, Electric Vehicle, and Microgrid systems and engineering.
- How using renewable energy systems and EVs reduces pollution and our reliance on toxic energy systems and foreign oil.
- How these technologies protect and conserve wildlife and the natural environment we all share and need for our very survival.
- Steve also plans to install a Little Free Library in the back (or frunk) of the future ENP electric truck and give access to anyone attending ENP programming.
ENCAP will also provide volunteer utility vehicle assistance to local and regional organizations as well as also support Transylvania County residents who need the use of a utility vehicle - but may not have the access or the means to pay for the service.
ENCAP - The Earthshine Nature Community Assistance Program:
With this program we will provide volunteer assistance to those animals/individuals/families/organizations in need within our local community that do not have access to truck-type utility vehicles and/or are unable to afford vehicle rental fees with projects and programs such as but not limited to: environmental and wildlife study, rescue, and monitoring as well as stream/storm cleanups, power provisioning for individuals and humanitarian organizations during power grid outages, transport of home/farm/garden/food supplies, etc.
Therefore, for all this awesome to happen, we at ENP are humbly and respectfully asking for your assistance and support that will enable our small 501c3 to acquire/purchase the trailer and components needed to make this happen. We simply cannot do this without your support.
Please join us in our mission to be of better service to those in need in our community.
For far more detailed information on how we plan to use this vehicle please visit our website using this direct link: https://www.earthshinenature.com/encap
Project cost estimate: $30,000
Our Target Population: those in the WNC community that we will assist via our future ENP Community Assistance Program.
Past Grant Funding for our other projects: Lake Toxaway Charities (https://laketoxawaycharities.org/) has been instrumental in the completion of Phase Two of our Classroom Solar Array project and the Phase Three battery backup plan that is currently in the planning stages. Support from LTC also allowed us to construct our Mobile Outreach Classroom/Microgrid project – the SS NaSA PoD.
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!!!
A young explorer using the POD's microscope station at the LEAF festival. Learn all about the SS NaSA PoD.
The SS NaSA PoD and a Tesla Cybertruck EV truck
For 2025, all donated and granted funding resulting from this campaign will be used entirely for the Mobile Microgrid Trailer Project as described above.
Therefore, our most immediate pressing need for the future of our community assistance program, is the acquisition of the funds and/or material donations of everything needed to build the dream that is this plan into reality.
You might be asking: "Why not just purchase a lower-priced, traditional, internal combustion engine-powered vehicles and generators etc?"
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 world we are working to understand, protect, conserve, and share with you.
We choose vehicles and power systems that we can fuel with "homegrown" renewable energy produced by our classroom solar array or portable solar panels 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.
Remember when hurricane Helene destroyed a large portion of Western North Carolina? The power grid, the roads, and the gas stations, and the entire supply chain broke down - and the gas and diesel fuel ran out in a just a few days? The supply chain is not robust and reliable enough to keep the fuel, electricity, and communications flowing in times of great need. Therefore, we chose the only reliable and consistent way to get power and communications to people in need: portable solar-powered micro-grids for power distribution and satellite based communication trailers such as the SS NaSA PoD and our future Power Bee Trailer and Portable Power Pods as well as fully electric vehicles to pull/tote/deliver them where and when needed.
After Helene we saw the immediate need, so we networked with friends to find a place of need and then stationed the PoD in the nearby small community of Cedar Mountain NC where it provided a shaded rest area with mobile device charging for the repair crews working in the area.
A few days later the PoD was used to provide electricity and internet access for the CedarFest fundraiser that was raising money to assist the local community get back on its feet after the storm.
A few weeks later the PoD again provided its services to the Cedar Mountain community when it was stationed at the Cedar Mtn. Artisan Craft Faire to provide internet connectivity and mobile device charging.
We then deployed the PoD at the Old Fort Strong Enduro Race fundraiser that was raising support for the tiny community of Old Fort, NC that took heavy losses in Helene.
Most recently, the PoD was called upon again to provide internet connectivity for a local homeowners association who needed connectivity for a Zoom meeting for their members.
Seeing how much we were needed after Helene - it was then that we realized that we must build more mobile microgrid systems and make them available to those in need, when and where they are needed.
What follows are a great few examples of how other mobile solar microgrid systems provided assistance in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene.
https://www.microgridknowledge.com/microgrids/critical-services/article/33013669/new-solar-microgrid-trailer-delivers-power-and-inspiration-to-atlanta-communities-in-need
Yet another reason we chose to use renewable energy systems is as follows - it is in our 501c3 mission statement: "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."
Using a petroleum distillate-powered legacy generator would be the antithesis of the current and future mission of Earthshine Nature Programs.
We at ENP also believe a vehicle should not be a detriment to our shared natural environment. Using traditional legacy fuels might be lower in initial cost and therefore, a quicker, cheaper way out - but it would also bring with it - huge yearly fuel and maintenance costs as well as lasting environmental and health impact costs - all of these things would add up to become far more expensive to ENP and to everything and everyone moving forward.
Therefore, we at ENP strive to only use electric outreach vehicles and systems 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 to understand, protect, conserve, and educate you all about. Again, this is why, since 2013, ENP has primarily been driving 100% electric vehicles and since 2017 - powering everything possible with solar generated electricity.
Please consider assisting us in finding the support needed to construct this most needed solar powered microgrid trailer and several portable power pods.
Also, if you know someone who may be interested in helping us make this program happen for our small, volunteer-owned, and operated, nonprofit organization and therefore our wonderful mountain community - please do share this information with them.
Steve and some of his awesome ENP volunteers with the PoD in the background at the LEAF festival.
THANK YOU from the crew at ENP!
NOTE: you may notice that the URL for this campaign is for a previous campaign we were running. Under the circumstances dictated by Helene, we decided to delete our original campaign and replace it with this new goal. However, GoFundMe would not let me change the campaign name.