Environmental Justice

GRID Culture Right at Home in Nicaragua
In Nicaragua last year, I joined a team of strangers as we traveled to the small Central American country to install solar for a rural village and see another part of the world with the GRID Alternatives International Program. Throughout the week people commented on “Nica time” warning us not to worry if things didn’t always follow the prescribed path. Over the week we all learned to let go and give the schedule over to the circumstance, to let the days flow uninhibited, to laugh, to work hard, and to understand that what will be, will be. It was a powerful experience to see a transformation as the group settled in with a different culture and concept of time.

2014: Celebrating GRID Bay Area's Year in Review

As we hit the roof running with our first solar installations of 2015, we want to pause and take a moment to celebrate our successes in 2014. Thanks to your support, we had an incredible year! Here are a few things to be excited about from 2014:

GRID Bay Area volunteers put in 13,000 hours of service. That’s some serious time, all directly benefitting low-income communities! 

More than 35 of our local volunteers were recruited for jobs in the growing solar industry thanks to their experience with GRID.

Ahidiikah (Come Together)

Between the four sacred mountains of the Navajo Nation the land and sky stretch vast and wild. Here, in Bird Springs Arizona, GRID Alternatives' Tribal Program staff partnered with three Navajo communities for an inaugural installation of a 2.6kW grid-tied solar photovoltaic system.

The Great Social Solar Divide

From a rooftop in sunny California, a Breaking Energy writer learns about the need for a national solar policy targeting low-income families.

Building Solar Communities

Saturday was a perfect day for solar in Long Beach thanks to a joint effort between Building Healthy Communities: Long Beach (BHCLB) and GRID Alternatives Greater Los Angeles (GLA). During the community awareness event, local leaders joined a group of GLA and BHCLB volunteers to install 2.7 kilowatts of solar for two Long Beach families. While solar went up on the roof, it also spread door to door as canvassers walked around the neighborhood talking to community members about solar energy.

GRID Mid-Atlantic is on the map!
GRID Alternatives Mid-Atlantic landed on the map “not with a whisper, but with a bang, a big bang,” as District of Columbia Housing Authority Director Adrianne Todman put it. Around 300 people came out to help us install 19 kW of clean, renewable solar power for ten deserving families, and spread the word that solar can and should benefit everyone.