Kai Spande, General Motors Bowling Green Assembly Plant manager, distributed $85,000 from the GM Foundation to eight community organizations Monday.

A GM official also talked about the recently installed solar array at the plant. The facility is the only place in the world where the Chevrolet Corvette is manufactured.

Receiving money were the Family Enrichment Center; Boys & Girls Club of Bowling Green; Kentucky War Memorial Unit; Barren River Area Safe Space; Friends of Lost River; Western Kentucky University Foundation; Bowling Green Area Chamber Foundation; Governor’s Scholars Program Foundation; and United Way of Southern Kentucky.

Spande said at a news conference that GM does not disclose individual amounts. The money comes from nearly $2 million in funding to organizations in 47 communities where GM employees live and work.

“Not one of these is a check in the mail,” said Spande, standing at the front of the GM Corvette plant tour room, the envelopes on his lectern. “You actually get handed a check.”

Spande said the money is one way GM can reinforce program efforts in the community and “give back,” Spande said.

“I think it is just a great opportunity for the GM family and the United Auto Workers family to bond with the community,” said Jeff Wydner, UAW Local 2164 chairman.

Tori Henninger, BRASS executive director, said the the money will be used for the Opt for Change program at the domestic violence awareness organization. Opt for Change has been used for at least the last five years.

“We try to promote self-sufficiency and job security,” Henninger said.

Opt for Change helped about 100 women and children last year. “With this money, we hope to double that.”

The money helps women and children pay for student, participation and equipment costs in programs in which they enroll.

“It could pay for the T-shirt or the (shoe) cleats used,” Henninger said.

Mark Iverson, chairman of the Bowling Green Area Chamber of Commerce, said the money received from the foundation will help with the On Track STEM program that involves about 500 students in local high schools and at Southcentral Kentucky Community and Technical College. The students rebuild Chevrolet Camaros and then compete in the Holley Performance Products LS Fest with the vehicles. The program teaches science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

“This is hands-on experience for the students in automotive disciplines,” Iverson said. “That translates when they graduate and become a better resource to employers here.”

The money for the Boys & Girls Club will be used for tutoring children in science, reading and math, and the Lost River Cave funds will help finance a STEM disciplines camp at the cave operation’s outdoor laboratory. The money to the WKU Foundation will continue the GM Green sustainability effort where children investigate local streams for life.

Looking at the new 850-kilowatt solar array, Rob Threlkeld, GM global renewable energy manager, said the array is the largest at any Kentucky automotive plant. It is designed to generate 1.2 million kilowatt hours of electricity annually for the Bowling Green plant. Spande said the installation is part of $776 million in new plant construction, which also includes the new paint shop.

“We can run this factory for one week” on that energy, producing 850 Corvettes, Spande said.

Threlkeld said he became interested in sustainability issues when he was a second-grade student in the Cincinnati area. He said there are 22 solar arrays throughout the GM plant network, 16 of them in the United States.

Their size would comprise 130 American football fields laid end to end, Threlkeld said. GM has a goal to generate 125 megawatts of its own energy through arrays by 2020 and to date has reached 106 megawatts in renewable energy, he said.

“We are bullish on renewable energy,” Threlkeld said. Dating back to 1993, GM has saved $80 million in energy costs through its sustainability efforts, he said.

— Follow business reporter Charles A. Mason on Twitter @BGDNbusiness or visit bgdailynews.com.