Fuel ENP's Mission with an Electric Vehicle

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 mission is 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.

In working to make this happen, ENP provides exciting, science-supported, environmental education and science literacy outreach to the local and regional communities by taking our programming to schools, libraries, summer camps, churches, scout groups, special events, festivals, birthday parties, and other public and private organizations.

Our primary areas of focus are locations in Western North Carolina including Transylvania, Buncombe, Henderson, Jackson, Haywood, Polk, Rutherford, and surrounding counties, as well as upstate South Carolina, East Tennessee, and Northeast Georgia. We also share our message with our worldwide audience via our website, YouTube channel, blogs, and Facebook page.

Since 2012 we have worked with our volunteers, students, and supporters, to create and maintain a one-of-a-kind, fully solar-powered, nature and science education classroom/lab that is open to our Momentum students throughout the week and for the public by appointment.

We collaborate with other like-minded organizations in our region with similar 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, electric vehicles, and their support infrastructure.

Campaign Goal: A New, Unique, Educational, and Recognizable Outreach Vehicle for Earthshine Nature Programs

Our goal with this campaign is to find the support necessary to enable Earthshine Nature Programs to acquire an all-electric pickup truck capable of towing our 3600 lb. (1632.9 kg) mobile outreach education vehicle - the SS NaSA PoD - as well as acting as a support vehicle for our daily operations, and a community assistance vehicle for our future ENCAP program.

Our Need: The vehicle ENP has been using to pull the PoD is our most limiting factor - but it was not supposed to be this way. Before we started construction on the PoD, an individual I have known for decades had promised to support ENP with a donation of the funds needed to purchase a Tesla Cybertruck which we would then use to tow the PoD, as well as support ENP’s other programming and operational needs. To prepare for his eventual donation ENP reserved a Cybertruck for ENP in the spring of 2022. In the early summer of 2024, we were contacted by Tesla and asked to configure our Cybertruck and prepare for delivery in August or September!! Unfortunately for us, we are not ready as the promised funding resource will not be available when we need it - and may in fact, never happen. Therefore, ENP is now stuck in a bit of a vehicular conundrum with a wonderfully new and magical mobile outreach classroom - but without a reliable, safe, and educational outreach vehicle to tow it. This is why ENP needs to quickly raise the money to purchase the previously reserved and now configured electric truck. Our need for this unique but mighty truck is $100,000.

Please consider supporting our cause with a donation of any size.

Note: The Cybertruck in the above photograph is owned by a friend who allowed ENP Executive Director Steve to test its ability to tow the PoD. The ENP logo on the truck's door was Photoshopped in place by Steve.

The long version with all the details:

Our mobile outreach education vehicle: In 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 - 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 as well as our Momentum 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 Problem: Sadly, the vehicle that ENP has been using to pull the PoD is this mobile education system's most limiting factor - but it was not supposed to be this way. Before we started construction on the PoD, an individual I have known for decades had promised to support ENP with a donation of the funds needed to purchase an all-electric truck or SUV that we would then use to tow the PoD, as well as support ENP’s other programming and operational needs for many years to come. Sadly, that promised resource will not be available when we need it - and may in fact, never happen. Therefore, ENP is now stuck in a bit of a vehicular conundrum with a wonderfully new and magical mobile outreach classroom - but without a reliable, safe, and educational outreach vehicle to tow it. This is why ENP needs a new electric truck or SUV to act as the SS NaSA PoD's tow vehicle.

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, 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.

However, this old Honda is not well suited for towing something as heavy as the PoD, it struggles to pull it up hills, is unreliable, and is 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 increased usage of domestically produced, distributed, renewable energy resources such as solar, wind, hydroelectric, as well as electric vehicles and their infrastructure."

• In addition to being far more environmentally friendly (and therefore supporting our mission statement), our decade of experience driving electric and using locally "harvested" solar-produced electricity to power our classroom and EV, as well as the experience of many others, has shown that electric vehicles are far less expensive to fuel and maintain than traditional gasoline-powered vehicles. By using all-electric outreach vehicles fueled primarily by electricity generated by our classroom solar array, ENP can redirect the money that would have been used for gas/oil/maintenance on the Honda, into enhanced outreach programming and service in the local and regional communities.

• Using an electric vehicle to tow the PoD and its all-electric solar microgrid, will serve as a wonderful teaching tool. It will be yet another outstanding STEM teaching tool in our environmental education tool belt.

• Electric vehicles also have far more torque than legacy vehicles - so towing the PoD to any of our outreach programs will not be an issue.

Jim and Steve teaching a group all about solar, renewable energy, and electric vehicles.

Imagine the above scene with an all-electric truck in place of the old Honda gasmobile. It will create so many wonderful education opportunities including but not limited to:

This is why we feel that the tired old Honda must be replaced with an all-electric truck or SUV to serve as the PoD's towing and outreach education/community assist vehicle.

Not only will a new outreach EV allow us to safely tow the SS NaSA PoD, but it will also support our daily operations as well as our future goal of providing volunteer utility vehicle assistance to local and regional organizations working to conserve and study wildlife and wild places. It will 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 - this will be the ENCAP program.

ENCAP - The Earthshine Nature Community Assistance Program: We will also use this new vehicle to 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 during 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 an all-electric truck/SUV. We simply cannot make this happen without your support.

Please join us in our mission to be better stewards of the only environment we have and 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/new-outreach-vehicle-fundraiser

Project cost estimate: $100,000

Our Target Population: Earthshine Nature Programs outreach program participants, our Momentum young adults, visitors to our classroom, volunteers, interns, and outreach program participants, and those in the WNC community that we will assist via our future ENP Community Assist Program.

Numbers Served: We serve hundreds of Momentum students each year as well as thousands of people of all ages via our outreach programming at our nature center classroom, public, private, and home school classrooms, camps, lodges, homes, and special events primarily within Transylvania, Buncombe, and Henderson counties and elsewhere in the Western North Carolina, Upstate South Carolina, East Tennessee areas. We also share knowledge and experience on our social media channels reaching countless others via the World Wide Web.

Partner Agencies: Momentum. I work as a Naturalist/Ecology Specialist for Momentum helping our students rekindle their curiosity and connections with the wonders of nature - and with themselves.

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 project – the SS NaSA PoD.

For 2024, all granted funding resulting from this campaign will be used entirely for the New Outreach Vehicle Project as described above.

But why an electric vehicle you may ask?

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 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 vehicle.​

Our first Outreach EV was a 2012 Nissan Leaf SL with 73 all-electric miles of driving range.

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. Thank you, Bob and Black Bear Solar Institute!

We USE our Bolt EV and we LOVE our Bolt EV (the Mighty Bolt) and we hope to drive it as long as possible - hopefully at least another decade or more.

Our 2nd Outreach Vehicle is the previously mentioned magical mobile outreach classroom that we call the ​SS NaSA PoD. ​ We use the PoD to bring our programming to local schools, camps, and other organizations in an outdoor, well-ventilated, environment. ​

The PoD at the LEAF festival with its wrap-around shade awning deployed.

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.

​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.

Rivian R1T, or R1S.

​Tesla Cybertruck.

ENP director Steve has driven both the Cybertruck and the Ford Lightning and, while he likes the Lighting and the Rivian, the Cybertruck remains his first choice.​ In fact, in 2022, when Steve's wealthy friend said he was going to support ENP with the purchase of a Cybertruck, Steve reserved one so he would be ready when it was time for his friend to make the purchase.

UPDATE 7/7/24: And now, that time has come. Steve recently received word from Tesla that it was time to configure the ENP Cybertruck.

The ENP Cybertruck has now been configured and will be produced for ENP in late August or early September of 2024! The only thing left to do now is make the final payment and take delivery of the truck!!!

However, this happened far faster than we ever thought possible. Due to our place in the reservation "line" - we predicted that Tesla would not be ready to produce the ENP Cybertruck until late 2025...but they spooled up production far faster than anyone anticipated and now ENP does not have the cash available to purchase the previously reserved truck and Steve's friend is unable to support ENP at this time. Sadly, if we are unable to raise the funds to support this purchase, we will lose our place in line and be forced to wait several more years to acquire the vehicle. We fear the old Honda will not make it that long.

This is why this campaign exists - to help ENP gather the support needed to acquire the ENP Cybertruck...but we would not hesitate to accept a new or used Rivian or Ford Lightning if someone chose to donate one to our cause.

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

The SS NaSA PoD and a Ford F-150 Lighting EV truck

The SS NaSA PoD and a Rivian R1T EV truck

The SS NaSA PoD and a Tesla Cybertruck EV truck

Whichever vehicle we can 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 assistance 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 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 in 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 almost 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 health care and 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."

Steve with a friend's 2024 Cybertruck towing the SS NaSA PoD. Watch the video of this adventure on the ENP YouTube Channel at this link.

As of 7/8/2024, 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 interested in helping us make this happen for our small, volunteer-owned, and operated, nonprofit organization, 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!

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