In the 90’s, Vivian Ellen Cooks met her husband and ultimately they decided to combine their households and created a blended family. Vivian and Johnny enjoyed married life for many years until Vivian became ill, which forced her to retired from the job that she loved of 28 years with the Merced County Office of Education in their Transportation Department. She felt that she had a positive impact on the lives of the people that she helped in her job and regretted the need to retire due to her health issues. Shortly after her retirement, in 2013, her husband became ill and passed away within six months, leaving her a single mother. Then her mother, Esther Marshall, passed away six month later. With the loss of her job, her husband and her mother in a short time frame, Vivian was under a lot of financial stress and forced into bankruptcy. Eventually, Vivian was finally able to clear up her financial problems and start rebuilding her life.
Previously, Vivian was living with her daughter and her grandchildren. Now she lives alone and she is working to upgrade her home. She has replaced her single pane windows with dual pane, received a new air conditioning unit with the help of Economic Opportunity Commission (EOC) and finds practical ways to weatherize her home, such as keeping room vents closed for the rooms that are not being used during the cold winter months and hot summer days. Through her contacts with EOC, she discovered GRID Alternatives and qualified for solar on her home. Before the installation, she did not know much about GRID Alternatives. She was very surprised about how quickly the installation went and was impressed by the level of professionalism of the GRID staff and how well they worked together to complete the installation. Her system is now running and with the money saved on her utility bill, she has a few more projects. She wants to get a new front door and repaint her home.
Vivian enjoys cooking and baking for her family and saves money by finding various deals going from store to store. She continually tries to have a positive impact for people in her community. Vivian graciously accredited her blessing to God and has an immense amount of gratitude for the trials that she has endured. She would like to continue to invest in her home; the money that she will save with solar will allow her to do that even further. Vivian has done so much for her community and helping people such as herself that makes what we do here at GRID so rewarding.