MissionDrive Oregon’s mission is to promote, support, and grow the electric mobility industry in Oregon. We envision Oregon as a leader in the rapidly growing electric vehicle industry, providing thousands of family wage jobs in a range of businesses delivering infrastructure, components, specialized vehicles, and support services.
Drive Oregon is the epicenter for innovation in electric mobility, connecting leaders and entrepreneurs to advance the industry and strengthen our economy. |
ELECTRIC MOBILITY AND EQUITYWhile at Drive Oregon I was the events management intern and an outreach coordinator. As the outreach coordinator I was in charge of connecting with organizations that worked directly with low-income communities and communities of color; with the purpose of finding an organization interested in pursuing the Blue Sky grant. Once we found an interested organization we would move onto the application process that we would support them through. The end result would be the installation of solar panels which would be used to generate energy that would charge an electric vehicle for the organization to use and share with its community. Through this project we hoped to create dialogue and awareness to in low-income and communities of color around clean energy technologies. By making these technologies accessible we believe interest in electric mobility and clean energy technologies will increase and cause a positive change within these communities.
WHY IS THIS WORK IMPORTANT?Low-income communities often have the most to gain from electric transportation. Families in these communities can benefit from fuel cost savings when switching from an inefficient gas guzzler to an electric vehicle. Their neighborhoods are also typically disproportionately impacted by the harmful health effects of air pollution, a problem that zero-emission electric vehicles can help address.
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For over fifteen years Blue Sky and Pacific Power have teamed up to fund a community-based renewable energy project. The funding award covers 100 percent of the capital costs to install qualifying, new renewable energy systems for non-residential sites within the Pacific Power service area. One project is selected annually, must use eligible renewable energy technologies and must be new or a new addition to an existing project.
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POSSIBLE PARTNER ORGANIZATIONS
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PROJECT PROPOSAL
REFLECTION
Unfortunately we were unable to find an organization who was willing to accommodate the time for the installation of the technologies and take on the responsibility of having a car share program. Although we were not able to secure an organization for the grant this year; many of them were very interested in the idea of bringing more awareness and access to clean energies and its technology. My time at Drive Oregon was a valuable experience and I found great joy in building relationships with the various organizations. I hope to move on into a career where i can focus on coalition building and solidarity work. My belief that significant change happens with significant relationships has been reaffirmed through this work.
OTHER DRIVE OREGON EVENTS I AM A PART OF
- ROCK THE BLOCK: A family-oriented celebration that brings together organizations that provide community members access to much needed, life changing resources. Friday, June 3rd & Saturday, June 4th
- GOOD IN THE HOOD: Multicultural Music, Arts and Food Festival (Information Village) June 24 - 26, 2016 Lillis Albina Park
- You will find us in the Information Village talking to people about electric mobility and its numerous benefits
- EV Roadmap: The EV Roadmap Conference brings clean energy stakeholders together in a highly interactive, conversational, collaborative format to explore emerging trends, share best practices, and map the road ahead. This is a "graduate course" in electric vehicle deployment and business strategy.
- I will be facilitating a focus group made up of people from low-income communities and communities of colour to discuss accessibility to Clean energy and EV technology.