Courtney Dittmar was thrilled the day she took home her orange Team Leader shirt. For months she had been commuting by bus, train, bike and foot to get to installs in Richmond, Oakland and San Francisco from her home in Mountain View, and she finally had something to show for it.
"You're working with a homeowner thats excited; this may never happen otherwise for them, the workers are excited. Its a win/win for everyone," says volunteer Frank Walters about his volunteer experience with GRID Alternatives.
This August, graduates from the Solar Design, Estimation, and Sales class at Skyline College completed a solar installation with GRID Alternatives. After their extensive classroom course, the 21 Skyline students were excited to put their skills to use on the roof. With their help, GRID Alternatives installed a 4.2 kilowatt system for a low-income family in Richmond, helping them save almost $40,000 in energy cost savings over the lifetime of the system.
Twin brothers Tyrone and Jerome Saxton, both former Army Reservists, got a special gift for Veterans Day this year: new solar electric systems to power their homes. The systems were installed Friday, November 9th by volunteers from Wells Fargo and Thrivent Builds, led by GRIDs Veteran construction staff and team leaders.
Volunteer Jeffery Trirogoff has been committed to GRID Alternatives since his first installation in March of 2011. He came in with clear intentions and a clear goal. Already having achieved a BPI Certification, this Green enthusiast wanted to obtain his NABCEP Installers Certification while giving back to the community at large.
The Single-family Affordable Solar Homes (SASH) Program provides a foundation for promoting and building a sustainable solar industry in California by making workforce development and job training an integral part of the program. The SASH Program will potentially provide solar installation opportunities to over 120,000 job trainees and volunteers throughout California, totaling more than one million hours of hands-on solar installation experience.
Here at GRID Alternatives Greater Los Angeles we are working to share the sun with everyone this summer and this June we celebrated the soltice with Randy Bishop, CEO and Cofounder of Verengo Solar, and a highly professional team of Verengo volunteers, who installed a 2.3 kW solar electric system for the Carrillo Family of Long Beach
GRID Alternatives Greater Los Angeles closed out the last days of March with solar electric systems installed at no cost for two low-income families on 124th Street in Compton. These solar installation projects were supported by a grant from the Southern California Gas Company, which is supporting 25 solar electric installations for low-income families in 2012 as part of their Bettering the Air We Breathe Campaign.
