Email from Jacob Benjamin:

All,

This past weekend was the Bike Project’s Cranksgiving event, which we helped promote. The event raised over $2,000 worth of food/supplies for Wesley Food Bank and the McKinley Pantry at Garden Hills.

Elsewhere, I’ve got most of the abandoned bikes separated in each of the containers but not yet fully organized. Will continue work on that this week.

Next up will be our Kids Bike Giveaway event. I’ll get a count of current inventory between here and the Bike Project in urbana this week, and begin refurbishing them.

This will be our last week being open M – F as we are closed for Fall Break and will be M/W/F after the break.

The numbers:

Visitors: 58
Sales: 490.25
Memberships: 6 for $180
Tires/tubes: 13 for $103

Thanks!

The iCAP Engagement Team met on Thursday, November 6th, 2025 from 4:00pm-5:05pm via Microsoft Teams. The team shared updates about the status of OneIllinois engagement, Greener Campus, and the ZeroWaste Training Module. The team also discussed a possible Newsletter post for E-Week regarding sustainability and the Certified Green Office Program.

The meeting minutes are attached.

Email from Jacob Benjamin:

I was out Friday and Monday so this is a day late. I was in Berkeley, CA which has roundabouts at all of their side-street intersections. (Hint, hint.)

Pretty uneventful week otherwise. I’ll continue work on the containers and begin prep for our Kids Bike Giveaway event, which’ll be on 12/20. Look for flyers/advertisements for that next week.

The numbers:

Visitors: 106

Sales: $157.50
Memberships: 15 for $450
Bikes (B-a-B): 1 for $50
Tires/tubes: 12 for $101

Thanks!

At this Friday's Illini Lights Out event, 3454 light bulbs were shut off that otherwise would have been left on all weekend, saving $525.51 in energy costs. This also prevented 4.7 metric tons of CO2 equivalent from entering the atmosphere, which is equivalent to the greenhouse gas emissions from 462 gallons of gasoline being consumed. That's a great impact! 

Email from Jacob Benjamin:

Things are a tick slower now that the temps have dipped. I’ve been pulling from the abandoned bike containers for parts, mostly tires and saddles as those have been most in-demand. We have two bikes on the sales floor with a handful in the queue.  Our supply of checked-over Build-a-Bikes is returning to an acceptable number as well.

This week I’ll tackle the containers of bikes and work to get them organized between bikes we’re keeping and those we’ll have scrapped.

The numbers:

Visitors: 96

Sales: $1,224.39

Memberships: 19 for $570
Tires/tubes: 39 for $353

Thanks!

At this Friday's Illini Lights Out event, 2011 light bulbs were shut off that otherwise would have been left on all weekend, saving $305.96 in energy costs. This also prevented 2.93 metric tons of CO2 equivalent from entering the atmosphere, which is equivalent to the greenhouse gas emissions from 330 gallons of gasoline being consumed. That's a great impact! 

The Tree Campus Advisory Committee met to review the overall program and committee membership. 

• The new Campus Landscape Architect, Bridgette Moen, joined the committee. 
• Team members discussed potential additions to the committee, including students, faculty, and staff.
• Justin Vozzo shared a status update on the tree grant.
  • Picking up several trees - 90 planted total this year
  • Ryan is heading up the F&S side, Stirling is helping to manage the contracts
  • Justin is hosting some tree plantings across the state, Urbana and in Macomb
  • Two events each spring and fall for next tw o years
• The South Arboretum Woods rehab has several plants being added, and there are student employees funded by the SSC.
• The Red Oak Rain Garden (RORG) is doing another plant installation this fall, and works with volunteers. They also installed interpretive signage.
• The Urban Wood Reuse program is going well.  The new mill is here, and they are working to hire more students.
• The Committee began reviewing the goals in the 2024 Tree Care Plan.
  • The Tree Keeper Inventory is complete for F&S, and it is still in progress for the Arboretum. 
    • There is also the ARC GIS inventory - which pulls from Tree Keeper
    • Ongoing to keep it up to date
    • Tree surgeons are responsible for logging them into the system
    • Assistants are responsible for logging the stump removals - the sub-foreperson goes in to remove it and change it to open or vacant site
    • When it is removed it is no longer counted in the inventory
    • When a new tree is planted - working with the vacant sites and updating those, planning and potential planting spots and adding the new tree in there
    • We need to identify opportunities to update the existing inventory
      
      • Longer-term - should do an update - including the diameters of the trees - should update that, changes over time
      • Might need to be a tree expert - how to appropriately update it regularly - tree health - arborist or someone who knows a lot about trees
      • Potentially it could be through dendrology - students could potentially do DBH measurements and baseline health questions
      • ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​Justin is working on developing an arboriculture class, could do some tree inventory as part to that class 
    • ​​​​​​​Set a goal in 2025 Tree Care Plan to develop a comprehensive plan for handling tree inventory updates: get a plan together for how to do a regular update and comprehensive update.

Email from Phillip Krein:

I wanted to update you on our EV charge infrastructure project. Tim Abrahamson supported us today from about 12:30pm to 2pm to gather circuit information in parking structures C10, C7, and B4. I owe Mike Brown an updated design report for our next-generation boxes, and of course we will not mount any new units until all is approved and Dave can inspect the setups. In the meantime, we learned the following:

In lot C10, four of our boxes can be supported without changes. The most likely plans place one each at the east and west columns on Level 2 and one each on those columns on Level 3.

In lot C7, it appears that five boxes can be supported.

In lot B4, we have chosen about all that are available (six units are in place).

For Krannert, there is one signed space where a unit can be mounted.

In F29 (the fire station and parking), it appears that four units can be supported, including three existing signed spaces.

In lot E15, there are NO receptacles that do not interfere with a walking path or equipment access path, so no units can be mounted there.

The total, including those in place, is 20 units. We are preparing 30 new units. I do have some plans for a few of them.

Philip Krein

We did observe that nearly all of these structures have potential for additional receptacle circuits, but this would require a project with wire pulls and infrastructure changes. Since we are talking about 120 V receptacles, such a project is routine, but obviously not trivial to set up and fund.

Professor Yun Yi provided the list of buildings that the class has modeled for energy use in the past:

Here’s the list of campus buildings we’ve modeled for energy use. I’ve shared it with F&S. Over the past two years, we focused more on buildings with detailed HVAC systems, which allowed us to calibrate the models with actual usage data—specifically buildings 1 through 4.

1. BEVIER HALL
2. ALLEN HALL
3. Newmark
4. CIF
5. Children’s Research Center
6. Speech and Hearing Building
7. Personal Services Building
8. Bruce D. Nesbitt African American Cultural Center
9. Temple Hoyne Buell Hall
10. Labor & Employment Relations (LER)Harker Hall
11. Student Services Building
12. Irwin Center for Doctoral Study
13. Wassaja Hall
14. Ceramics Building
15. Architecture Annex
16. Uni High

Best

Yun