Volunteers

A Millenial’s experience at San Diego Solarthon 2012, by San Diego Volunteer Lauren Lindner

For Johannes Copeland, a former Marine Corps Logistics Officer and GRID Alternatives veteran who started his own installation company, solar power is about energy independence more than anything else. In two tours in Iraq, he says he saw first-hand the impact of our dependence on fossil fuels.

At 90-plus degrees, Saturday was a sweaty day for the third annual GRID Alternatives Central Valley Solarthon, but for the families of Parksdale, it was a happy one. Thanks to the hard work of over 100 individual sponsors, corporate employee volunteers, job trainees and the homeowners themselves, the families’ electrical meters will be running backward this summer, not forward, saving them thousands of dollars during what is usually a season of high bills.

"Living in Japan, you see how everything they do is based on saving something, whether it's energy, water or other resources," said Norm Graham. "That's the life they live. Every other house in Japan had solar panels. I thought "why can't we have that here in America?"

GRID Greater Los Angeles hosted its first women's build this past weekend. Women from as far as Washington DC, Delaware, Colorado and Arizona and as close as East LA and Santa Monica came together to cooperatively install a 1.8 kW system for the Galarza family in Watts.

A father of five, Eduardo Huerta was out of work for 13 months due to a car accident. Today he's aiming for a new career in solar.

The Bay Area team would like to send a big thank you to the Berkeley Energy and Resources Group (ERG), who not only completed a solar installation for the Thompson family in Richmond last weekend but also raised nearly $7,500 to support GRID!