In the cavernous basement of Sabathani Community Center in south Minneapolis, two massive, 50-year-old boilers are undergoing maintenance before another long winter.
Thelma and Louise, as the boilers are known, are the primary heat sources for the city's original African American community center. Sabathani spends about $20,000 annually just getting the machines prepped for winter, building manager Jesus Dominguez said.
The nearly 100-year-old building had an Energy Star rating of zero when Sabathani conducted an audit in 2019. Winter utility bills can be as high as $27,000 a month, according to Sabathani Chief Executive Scott Redd.
"We should be able to take that money and do something else with it," he said.
Sabathani Community Center was founded in 1966 by Black members of a south Minneapolis Baptist church. Today, it serves as a one-stop shop for integrated community services, with a large food shelf, workforce training and medical reference centers. Sabathani also hosts 25 organizations in its building, including a Montessori school and a printing business. Each year, about 150,000 people come through its doors.
Sabathani calls itself "the heart of south Minneapolis," and the organization aims to make that heart beat greener. As a first step, the center is one of three buildings selected by Xcel Energy for the $9 million Resilient Cities Minneapolis project, an initiative that will install rooftop solar and a large energy storage battery on the site. The goal is to ensure that Sabathani can be a refuge for the community during power outages caused by extreme weather or to cool off during heat waves.
As climate change caused by the burning of fossil fuels continues to warm the atmosphere, extreme weather events and heatwaves are coming with more frequency, experts say.
But Sabathani isn't stopping there. It's in the midst of a green energy renovation to lower the building's carbon footprint and utility costs.