by William Atkinson
When Janice Spears needed a new school building, she got creative. Spears, superintendent for Community Unit School District 3, Fulton County, Cuba, Ill., knew that neither she nor the community would be content with a traditional school building. But because the school district is located in an economically depressed rural area, funding was tighter than for most public schools. Spears needed a solution that would provide some much-needed financial help but also allow for some creative freedom in the design of the school. Her goal was to build the greenest school she could.
Although some people who apply for grants assume that opportunities are limited, Spears says that the grant opportunities are limited only by one’s imagination. And she proved it by gaining hundreds of thousands of dollars of ‘green’ grants.
Though application for the green grants was a key component to the school’s funding, the first step was to contact the state, which offers construction grants based on a poverty index. With Fulton County’s 66 percent index, the state covered 66 percent of building costs for the new school.
The district received $4.6 million for the building from the Illinois Capital Development Board. It also received $2.8 million from local tax increases.
“Our community strongly supports education, and the tax increase passed two-to-one,” says Spears. The third primary source of funding came from more than $725,000 in green grants. The green grants Spears secured included:
* $100,000 from the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity for the photovoltaic system, and another $300,000 from the Illinois Clean Energy Community Foundation.
* $100,000 from the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity for special windows and additional insulation in the ceiling and exterior walls.
* almost $100,000 from the Ford Motor Co. and the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity for crumb rubber to upgrade the baseball and football fields.
* $60,000 from the Illinois Clean Energy Community Foundation for the green architectural design fees.
* $60,000 from the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity for a greenhouse. (To save on labor costs, community volunteers built it.)
* $4,500 from Ameren/CIPS, the local power company, for ‘smart lights’ for the football field.
* $2,500 from the Illinois Department of Natural Resources for alternatives to the use of plastic foam cups and plates in the cafeteria.
Grants also helped cover the cost of 100 percent recycled and recyclable carpeting, gymnasium bleachers created from recycled milk jugs, carbon dioxide sensors, acoustic ceiling tiles and energy-efficient split-face building blocks.
Tackling Challenges
Securing the grants wasn’t exactly a simple process. Spears says that there were a number of challenges and qualifications the district had to meet.
“First is finding the grants,” she says. Given her personal and professional commitment to green building, though, Spears spent her own time seeking grant opportunities and completing the paperwork.
Some grants required matching funds, something the district couldn’t always afford. “I was able to obtain a grant last summer for a wind turbine that would cover one-third of the cost,” she says. “However, I had to turn it down because we didn’t have a source for the rest of the funding.”
In some cases, the grants are conditional. For example, some base the amount of payment on the number of kilowatts. “Our photovoltaic project funding was limited because they would only fund so much per kilowatt,” she says.
Finally, grants didn’t cover all of the green building elements Spears wanted to include. For example, she was unable to locate a grant for the school’s geothermal project, so that was paid for out of the building funds. “Grants also did not fund the carpets or bleacher seats made from recycled materials,” she says.
Preliminary Results
While detailed payback information for the energy-saving strategies isn’t yet available, Spears says that estimates suggest the projects are saving the school 35 to 40 percent of its energy costs. Most of these savings are coming from the geothermal and photovoltaic projects.
While the energy savings are the practical benefit, recognition for the green project was the icing on the cake. The district recently won the governor’s award for energy efficiency, the only school in the state ever to receive this award.
Keys to Success
Spears attributes the school’s success to a number of things. First was a common goal among the board, administration and community. “Everyone actively supports this,” she says.
That support motivated Spears at the start of the process to begin looking for grants that focused on green construction. She also worked to make sure that all the green elements were properly integrated into the building as a whole so they work as a coordinated system. The integrated approach is also important because the district has no professional maintenance department. The integrated strategy also appealed to the granting agencies.
“You need to read grants two or three times before you apply for them to make sure that you see what they are really looking for,” she says.
Finally, Spears says a key to the school’s success was staying the green course. “People who give you an initial grant need to know that you will use it properly,” she says. “When you can go back to them with a demonstration of your success from the first grant, subsequent ones are easier to obtain.”
The Future
One of Spears’ immediate goals is to secure funding for the wind turbine project for which the school district was unable to match the granted funds.
Spears is also waiting to hear about another grant for green cleaning supplies.
And she is searching for a grant so industrial arts students can help build a cistern to capture water runoff from the building and parking lot to use for irrigation. She’s also trying to find a grant that would allow the district to develop some natural areas for nature walks, bird identification and native tree identification, among other things.
Finally, the district will soon be getting a grant for vermi-composting, which uses worms to compost organic matter. “We will feed our garbage and waste paper to the worms,” she says. “Their castings produce rich fertilizer that we plan to sell to nurseries, which highly prize it.”
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William Atkinson is a freelance writer.
FROM the Green Building Report, produced quarterly by the U.S. Green Building Council in Building Operating Management, a Sustainable Business.comContent Partner.
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