The goal of this grant proposal is to receive funding to purchase and install a solar-powered workstation through a company named SunBolt (https://gosunbolt.com/workstations/). The goal is to provide a shaded area for staff, faculty, community members, and Illinois students. We were recently awarded funding to open an outdoor activity space. This space would allow us to provide students with access to physical activity opportunities and to reduce barriers to participation for our community members. It is important to provide a resource that allows guests to seek refuge from the sun while also promoting sustainability efforts on campus. Desired outcomes are, but are not limited to, limiting health hazards that could come from heat exhaustion, building awareness of sustainability efforts by allowing users to charge devices using energy from the sun, and creating a space for individuals to gather and build community.
This is a necessary project for the campus because the new outdoor facility will have no shelter from the sun, and the solar-powered table will provide a solution to this specific issue while also aligning with the University’s sustainability goals outlined in the Illinois Climate Action Plan (iCAP). Furthermore, other Big10 schools (specifically the University of Michigan Ann-Arbor) have implemented a similar project using Sunbolt’s solar-powered workstation “CampusXL”. The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign would benefit from this purchase as it would allow us to keep up with the best schools in the country, be the first major Illinois university to have this product, and to demonstrate a commitment to sustainability efforts.