Update: 27 local highschool students out working on the bus. It was a cold but productive day! With warmer weather just around the corner, we're anxious to get this baby out of the parking lot and out on the road!

Update:

Additional people involved: 95

Joshua Bennett
Number of people in the organization: 14 (teachers)
Number of people impacted: 95 (not including video distribution or actual driving use)
Describe the impact the grant had: Winning a DoSomething grant showed my staff that we can win MORE than one grant! This was our second grant and we were extremely encouraged to know our efforts were recognized and valuable. The grants came at an economically strapped moment, which helped propel projects forward that would have been squashed. Even now, with very little support to push the work and even less unified vision for the application to our NorthBay Follow On program, we can still do it. I am very excited when the bus will run on the first tanks of Waste Vegetable Oil on NorthBay. I believe the staff will suddenly understand a wealth of possibilities for their future development and the students they can reach. Additionally, we started developing NorthBay as a sustainable operation. We learned that we needed quality controls for prefiltering the oil, storing it, and organizing a fueling station for the Bus. This project will change the “routine” and “normal behavior” for fueling vehicles, which is a dramatic impact all by itself. On an organizational level, it is drastic and helpful!
Project highlights: 1) I looked forward to working on this project. It gave me a joy in my work that simply earning a paycheck never will do. I could see wasted materials become redeemed to new and valuable life in ways that positively impact others now and in the future. I can’t imagine a better result. 2) Another highlight of mine was the day that Elkton High School students came to do testing on the exhaust of the unmodified fuel source. 3) I really enjoyed learning about Waste Vegetable Oil. Staff and I had a chance to be creative. We needed to make the most of recycled materials and donations from friends. We learned to rely on other tinkering people like us. I moved slow and gave myself and others the chance to really absorb our work. I found out that I love “making things ‘go’”. I am excited to follow this new interest and share it in my next car purchase and with NorthBay.
How did the project unfold and develop? The project sprung out of an idea from a Sustainability Festival that a NorthBay staff attended the previous fall. We kept wondering whether running vehicles on waste vegetable oil could work on a bigger scale. When a generous man donated a used school bus to the organization, it seemed natural to consider offsetting our costs of fuel and costs to the environment. We knew that no one would listen to the idea until we came up with a plan and found some supplies. We spoke with a few teachers, set aside some time, wrote the DoSomething grant, and began preparing. Unfortunately, the NorthBay community and the Follow On students have not been very involved yet! With the summer break, we’re waiting to get to work this year. I imagine that magnitudes of students will be impacted when we start to drive them on the bus. Until then, we can only plan and prepare. Fortunately, this time allowed other teachers to hear of this “out-of-the-box” opportunity and has encouraged more creative student learning ideas.