Pea Patch Community Campus update

Project Updates and Presentation on Solar Microgrid Study

||| FROM SUZANNE OLSON for PEA PATCH COMMUNITY CAMPUS |||

The Pea Patch Community Campus continues to take shape behind the scenes with site planning, permitting and preparations for a fundraising campaign. Please join us for a report on the project and a presentation on the study underway to include a solar + battery microgrid to offset the power usage on the campus.

On March 10 th @ 5:30pm in the Parish Hall at Emmanuel Episcopal Church, the Säzän Group, engineering consultants, will present their progress to date and answer questions about the solar microgrid.

In addition to offsetting energy usage, a microgrid on the campus would:

• increase affordability for the 20 new townhome rentals, the new Food Bank and Resource Center buildings;
• keep essential services operational during a disruptive event—such as a power outage, supply chain disruption or natural disaster;
• increase resiliency for the whole community with a small, local power supply in times of need.

The microgrid feasibility study was funded by the WA Department of Commerce, and additional grant funding would be required to build the microgrid. The study is scheduled to be complete by September 2025. The first phase of construction for the campus is scheduled to begin in early 2026, dependent on permitting and funding.

The Pea Patch Community Campus is under development at 55 Pea Patch Lane, on the historic Lavender Farm, north of Eastsound Village. The unified social services campus will provide permanent facilities and increased capacity for the Food Bank and the Resource Center to address local food insecurity and to provide social services to help our community thrive and achieve equitable well-being; plus twenty new long-term townhome rentals to serve households of low income with supportive services. The Pea Patch Community Campus is a collaboration of OPAL Community Land Trust, Orcas Island Food Bank and the Orcas Community Resource Center. Learn more at www.opalclt.org/in-the-works/pea-patch-property/.