Luke went from having relatively no solar experience to being a paid solar installer in three months. His pathway to employment was one of hard work, solar connections, and lots of GRID solar volunteer experience.

GRID’s Bay Area office honored Veteran’s Day 2012 with a very special solar installation: a team of students from Laney Green Jobs, including several veterans, worked all weekend to complete a solar system on the home of a fellow veteran in Richmond’s Iron Triangle. The system is expected to save Mr. Avila, a Marine Corps veteran who served in Vietnam and now lives on a fixed income, over $22,500 in energy costs over the lifetime of the system.

Last week, new GRID Alternatives staff and interns from across the state, the Bay Area construction team, and co-founders Ericka Mackie and Tim Sears installed solar panels on two low-income homes in the Bayview neighborhood of San Francisco.

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.

Put on your party hardhat and celebrate: the 7th Annual Bay Area Solarthon on July 21st in San Jose was a HUGE success! Thank you to all of our amazing sponsors, Solar Champions, homeowners and job trainees from the Center for Employment Training who all came together to successfully install 13 solar electric systems (a total of 262 solar panels) in one day!

Steve Tate became a GRID Alternatives volunteer after a severe motorcycle accident in East Oakland in September 2010. “I felt myself bleeding, and looked up to someone’s eyes.

Oneida Branch is known to her community as "Mother Branch", where for decades she has run an informal community food bank from her home.

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.

Donna Levey was a foster mother until she adopted Dolan and Dylan, two special-needs children whose medical conditions “require at least three loads of laundry every day, seven days a week.”

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!