"It's really about providing exposure to green energy initiatives and opportunities such as vertical farming, agriculture, technology, solar panels," said The Warehouse CEO Logan Herring. "We're also bringing to bear a vehicle-to-grid bus, which is...an electric bus that, when it's charging at night, delivers power to the grid. I believe it's one of the only buses in this area of its kind--or it will be once we get it delivered at the beginning of 2021."
The Warehouse, a "collaborative, one-stop, state-of-the-art," 43,000 sq. ft. facility, is a center "for teens, run by teens." More than 150 Delaware youths participate in the decision-making that drives the progress of the group. Herring said a new partnership with Delmarva Power will provide these children with access to opportunities they wouldn't have had otherwise.
"This is new to all of us. I haven't been exposed to it, so this is definitely a new concept I think is pretty much foreign in low-income communities," Herring said. "[But] we don't measure our success by what we haven't had in communities such as Riverside. We want to compare everything we're doing to any area, whether it's a low-income or the most affluent areas; Delaware or the country."
The partnership brings investments from Delmarva Power to help fund, build, and operate new special initiatives at The Warehouse, including an indoor, vertical-grow agricultural pod, known as the Ag Pod, which will allow teens in the program to provide an acre-and-a-half worth of vegetables to the community every couple of weeks.
Read more at Delaware's (DJ McAneny)