Jim Thorpe Borough is hosting a meeting Thursday to discuss potential funding options for electric vehicle charging stations.

The meeting, open to Carbon County municipalities and businesses, aims to educate attendees about the U.S. Department of Energy’s “Charge@Work” initiative and explore collaborative efforts to bring EV charging infrastructure to the region.

According to Jim Thorpe officials, the meeting will be held at Jim Thorpe High School at 6:30 p.m. The borough asks that anyone interested in attending RSVP by sending an email to adminasst@jtborough.org.

The “Charge@Work” program provides funding and support to workplaces and public entities looking to establish EV charging stations.

Tony Bandiero, program director for Eastern Pennsylvania’s Alliance for Clean Transportation, said the nonprofit can help municipalities or businesses connect with federal, state and local incentive programs, create a site plan, identify which technologies work best for them, gauge worker interest in EVs, create a plug share plan for workers and connect with local installers.

In December, Borough Manager Maureen Sterner pitched the idea of inviting local businesses and neighboring municipalities to learn more about the program, offering towns the chance to collaborate in designing stations tailored to their unique needs.

“What they are offering at this point in time is to come and speak to us about the program,” Sterner said of the Department of Energy during council’s December workshop. “They can explain this program and what is available to us. The goal for this phase would be that they would be able to design charging stations for us.”

Sterner emphasized the importance of the design process before going after any government money.

“We all know with grant applications that they like projects that are shovel ready,” Sterner said. “So if we can work with the DOE on the design, we could have a shovel ready project.”