A coalition of local nonprofits and community leaders hope to soon make a church in Portsmouth into a gathering place for not just parishioners, but also people who want to fight climate change.
The group is turning New Bethel Baptist Church on Greenwood Drive into a “resilience hub,” said Garry Harris, longtime Portsmouth resident and managing director of the nonprofit Center for Sustainable Communities.
“The church is sitting here, doing its thing just like any church,” Harris said. “But we’re going to tap into (that) and layer on some additional programming and really enhance the church to address the needs of the community.”
The goal is for people to come learn about how to address growing impacts from climate change at the community level, especially in an equitable way, he said.
The site would also be an example for strategies to adapt to climate change, such as planting trees and installing solar panels and electric vehicle chargers.
Harris said they hope to build a micro-scale electric grid on-site powered by solar panels and batteries. That could allow the church to serve as a refuge during storms.
“If (you) lose power, you can come here to the church and charge your cell phone and eat a hot meal,” he said. It’s “maintaining that critical energy function.”
The resilience hub idea grew out of a partnership with Virginia Wesleyan University to mitigate the effects of extreme heat in Portsmouth.
“It’s all about cooling down P-town by using science,” Harris said.
On one of the year’s hottest days last summer, volunteers drove a set of predetermined routes throughout the city equipped with heat sensors to measure temperatures. New Bethel was used as a home base for the event.
Officials plan to hold an “extreme heat town hall” this Saturday to go over the results of the heat mapping and identify hotspots for taking action. They’ll also install an air sensor to monitor local pollution levels in partnership with the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality.
Extreme heat is rising in Virginia due to the burning of fossil fuels that trap more of the sun’s heat in our atmosphere. That means a growing number of hot days each year – and higher temperatures on days that are already hot.
Average annual high daily temperatures in much of Hampton Roads could reach about 78 degrees Fahrenheit toward the end of the century – up from an average 68.7 degrees between 1960-1990, according to federal data.
But that heat is not felt evenly. Temperatures can vary greatly across different urban areas, a phenomenon known as the urban heat island effect.
A similar mapping of Virginia Beach by Virginia Wesleyan in 2021 reflected this effect, finding some areas up to 15 degrees hotter than others, ranging from 82 degrees to 97 in the peak afternoon heat.
Harris said officials often turn to planting trees as their main cooling strategy. He wants to go further for disadvantaged communities, such as helping elderly residents fix or replace failing air conditioning units.
Trees can take decades to help, he said. “We need action now.”
That will start with a city-wide action plan, incorporating feedback from community members and leaders at City Hall.
Harris said the larger resilience hub will likely cost around $1 million to $2 million over the next few years.
That’s funded largely by a mix of state and federal grants – several of which are still frozen under the Trump administration’s pause of climate-related funding. Still, they are pressing forward, he said.
Mark Whitaker, pastor at New Bethel Baptist and a former Portsmouth City Council member, said his priority is to ensure that the climate solutions they highlight closely align with social justice for his congregation.
“We can't separate climate and then not talk about income disparities, health disparities – they all work together,” he said. “So this is just another opportunity for us to address the surrounding inequities that we see in our communities. It will not be solved overnight.”
The “Cool Down P-Town” event at New Bethel Baptist Church will start at 9:30 a.m. on Saturday, March 8 with a community listening session about local health disparities, followed by an extreme heat town hall at 1 p.m.
