Michigan Energy Options Marks 40 Years in East Lansing

Standing in what looked like a dining room turned cafeteria, college-aged students mingled with adults who could have been their parents or grandparents.

A woman finished her drink and needed to dispose of her red Solo cup.

“I’m going to find the recycling,” she said.

It was a fitting thing to do at the 40th anniversary of what was once Urban Options and is now Michigan Energy Options, a non-profit environmental group. Former and current members along with numerous guests gathered last Thursday evening to celebrate and reminisce about four decades of community-based environmental activism.

“It’s wonderful to see it’s continued and thrived,” Maureen Hart said.

On it’s website, MEO states that its goal as “guiding communities toward being more sustainable and resilient through adoption of energy efficiency and renewable energy.”

Hart, who headed MEO (then Urban Options) from 1980-85, remembers filling the void caused by stripped-back environmentally-oriented initiatives on the federal level. If help in being environmentally responsible wasn’t coming from elsewhere, she wanted to provide it in her own community.

One of the chief ways Urban Options folded itself into East Lansing early after its founding in 1978 was doing workshops, Hart said. These mainly centered around “weatherizing” homes — adding insulated window covers and securing drafty doors for winter —or installing a solar heater. The message was always about saving energy or producing it in a sustainable fashion. The hook for homeowners: All the methods would save them money.

And if residents couldn’t afford to weatherize, Hart said, MEO would do it for free.

“We were so passionate at that time,” Hart said.

The group also hired a truck for recycling drives before curbside recycling was commonplace, Hart said. The trailer parked in the Frandor shopping center monthly, Hart said, and people would come with cars full of recyclables to be hauled away.

Hart left in 1985 for a job in California, but she had a revelation when she left.

“When I moved to California in 1985,” she said, “Michigan was ahead.”

MEO didn’t only help East Lansing learn — it’s own members gained something.

Ruelaine Stokes joined in 1979 and took the reins as workshop coordinator and eventually did some grant writing.

She knew next to nothing she said, but learned more than household ways to save energy.

“Technology, economics,” Stokes said. “It was a gigantic education for me.”

“It was fascinating,” she added.

MEO’s early relationship with East Lansing residents quickly strengthened, as did its partnership with the City.

Throughout its existence, MEO has worked in congress with the City, several members noted. Hart called the City working so closely with the group “a step outside the box.”

Still — even with backing from residents and the local government — it was a small outfit, and in 1983, five years after its start, Hart thought it might be time to “call it quits.”

But Urban Options and Michigan Energy Options kept persisting.

“We just didn’t go away and 40 years later we’re still here,” Hart said.

Today the group, housed on Grove Street within a stone’s throw of East Lansing’s City Hall, operates large energy programs across the state, helps communities design and implement local projects, and offers technical and consulting services.