Tucked away in Orlando’s Packing District, the emerging 4Roots Campus is unearthing the power of food to build healthy communities. Launched by John Rivers, founder and CEO of 4Rivers Restaurant Group, the nonprofit community alliance is dedicated to building a better food future and ending food insecurity by creating a strong local food system alongside stakeholders and partners – including OUC.

For OUC, investing in the 4Roots Campus is part of an effort to create more resilient, thriving communities.  The 4Roots campus is in OUC’s Empowerment Zone, an economically disadvantaged area located in the 32805 ZIP code. The community is considered a food desert, where nutritious, affordable food can be hard to find. In food deserts, residents often rely on easy, inexpensive meals from convenience stores and fast-food restaurants, which can have long-term health impacts. Residents living in the Empowerment Zone also face a high “energy burden,” meaning their percentage of median annual income disproportionally goes towards paying for utilities.

Once the 4Roots Campus opens, nearby residents will learn to grow their own fruit and vegetables in an urban setting. The campus will eventually feature hands-on classes, community gardens, a greenhouse, a food forest and a farmer’s market – providing residents a destination for healthy food options.

OUC’s campus investment includes installing EV chargers and launching a nanogrid project on the site to understand how microgrids may interact with traditional power grids. The nanogrid will allow OUC to understand how to integrate a floating solar array with battery storage. OUC will attach two DC Fast Charging ports and four level 2 chargers to the storage equipment to experiment with managing a resilient charging solution.

The development is partially funded by a Congressionally Directed Spending earmark in the 2022 Federal Budget granted to OUC for $3 million dollars. OUC is using this money to expand access to charging infrastructure in the Florida 10th Congressional District in addition to developing the 4Roots Campus ReCharge Hub. This project will help OUC learn how to interact with nontraditional generation sources, and ultimately deliver even more reliable, sustainable energy.

For a century, OUC has been committed to partnerships that support the community. Now, those investments are blossoming into fresh and exciting offerings, like a nanogrid at a farmer’s market. One day, people could come to the 4Roots Campus to shop for fresh produce, recharge their electric vehicles, discover what’s happening at 4Roots – and ultimately, become supporters of the mission.

It’s just one more way that OUC supports community flourishing throughout the Empowerment Zone and beyond.