Okanagan park goers can now charge their phones and devices at two regional parks, since Enactus Okanagan College students installed solar power ‘ReCharge stations.’
The two month pilot project at Mission Creek and Gellatly Nut Farm Regional Parks will allow visitors to bring their USB charge connecting cable and plug in their phone, IPAD or laptop and charge their device while enjoying the outdoors.
Enactus business student, Cooper Simson said the formulation of the project started at the college, after a need for more charging station arose and it took about 1.5 years of work and constructing of the station to perfect to what has been installed.
“We came up with the idea and many iterations later we came up with the idea of having a charging station attached to tables that people can sit and charge their devices at and so we went through many design phases and now what the project has turned into is a social enterprise where we are getting students from our ‘Accelerate Youth’ programs at Rutland, Central and Westside schools building the stations,” said Simson
Simson said he hopes the pilot will be a success so the students will be able to build more solar charging stations at parks across the region, which will help for a new curriculum for students, giving them skills needed for future jobs.
The Regional District of Central Okanagan’s Bruce Smith said during the pilot, the district will be calculating the costs to run the stations and the amount of use it gets from the community.
“We will have to see about the cost, because being rate payers, cost is something we need to be cognitive of and we will continue to monitor it and see how much use it gets and what kind of feed back both we and the college gets,” said Smith.
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Enactus Okanagan College is a non-profit student organization is focused on developing and implementing community projects. The ‘ReCharge’ pilot project will run until the end of June.
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