This past Saturday, GRID Alternatives Greater Los Angeles held its 5th annual Solarthon in Santa Ana, CA, where more than 100 participants—volunteers, individual sponsors, corporate teams, job trainees and homeowners themselves—came together to install solar electric systems for five families.
GRID’s first solar block party and fundraiser in the OC was quite a success, thanks to our volunteers and team leaders who started working in the early morning and wrapped up the five installations around 2:00 pm. They installed a total of 18.7 kilowatts AC, which will save the families $159,000 over the 30-year lifetime of the systems. The systems will also offset 490 tons of greenhouse gases, which is equivalent to planting about 11,500 trees!
During lunch, volunteers and homeowners gathered at Saddleback View Park for food, music and fun. “I'm very happy to know that we will receive solar energy and we will benefit economically, and that it will help the environment”, said Santa Ana homeowner Silvia Mora Silva during the lunchtime program. “We are grateful to the sponsors and to GRID Alternatives and to all the volunteers.” Also during the lunchtime presentation, Wells Fargo Executive Daniel Rodriguez presented a $100,000 check to support GRID Alternatives' workforce development efforts. Wells Fargo, along with SunPower, RGS Energy, GoGreenSolar, InSolar!, and SolarCity were among this year's Solarthon sponsors—a big shoutout goes out to them!
In case you missed it, get a sneak peak at some of our pictures here and re-live all the fun by scrolling through some of our favorite social media moments of the day below!