EV charging stations available at AMBS
Published: March 8, 2024
By Annette Brill Bergstresser
ELKHART, Indiana (Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary) — Electric vehicle (EV) owners can bookmark Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary (AMBS) in Elkhart, Indiana, as a charging location when they’re on the road. The seminary installed three EV charging stations on campus in 2023, thanks to a 2022 grant from the JustPax Fund.
According to Deanna Risser, MBA, AMBS Vice President for Administration and CFO, the charging stations are free and open to the public. The seminary welcomes contributions to AMBS to help maintain the stations and offset the electrical cost.
Risser described the addition of the charging stations as an expression of the seminary’s commitment to care for God’s creation.
“We lament the changes that are happening to our environment with climate change, and we keep looking for ways to make small and large improvements on campus that can help us to be as efficient as possible in conserving energy,” she said.
She said the idea for the charging stations came about when she and Bob Yoder, DMin, CFRM, AMBS Director of Development, brainstormed ways to improve environmental sustainability on campus to apply for the grant.
“We thought it would be nice — especially as we talk about our 50kW and 80kW solar energy arrays — to also have EV charging stations on campus as a service to offer people,” she said. “We’re grateful that JustPax was interested in the project and helped fund it. I see it serving a need on our campus and in our wider community, and I think it also helps raise awareness about electric vehicles.”
Installing the charging stations turned out to be easier and more cost-effective than expected, Risser said. Norm Cender, Director of Maintenance and Campus Safety, and Orion Blaha, Assistant Director of Maintenance, connected with existing electrical lines to install a single charger on the south end of Waltner Hall and a double charger on the east side of the Maintenance Building.
The grant also paid for signage to accompany the charging stations and for a parking pad by the double charger, which was installed by Enos Tice, a volunteer with Mennonite Mission Network’s SOOP (Service Opportunities with Our Partners) program. Blaha noted that they chose grass-permeable pavers for the parking pad to reduce its carbon impact.
“Rainfall will pass through them instead of running off, and the system uses significantly less concrete than a similarly sized poured concrete pad,” he said.
Risser said she has heard “a lot of appreciation” for the charging stations.
“We have several students and employees who drive electric vehicles,” she said. “I’m also aware of others who were coming to campus from a distance for a particular event and chose to drive their EV because they knew there were charging facilities here.”
The $20,000 grant also supported two other projects that seminary leaders wanted to pursue but did not have funding to complete: converting all of the seminary’s parking lot lights to LED lights to increase energy efficiency; and planting 19 mature trees on campus to replace aging trees and support the environment.
The JustPax Fund is a donor-advised fund administered by the Everence Charitable Services Harrisonburg Office through the Everence affiliate, Mennonite Foundation.
Learn more about creation care at AMBS
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Located in Elkhart, Indiana, on ancestral land of the Potawatomi and Miami peoples, Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary is a learning community with an Anabaptist vision, offering theological education for learners both on campus and at a distance as well as a wide array of lifelong learning programs — all with the goal of educating followers of Jesus Christ to be leaders for God’s reconciling mission in the world. ambs.edu
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