For many, Monday night was about coming home and trying to shed the worries of a new work week. For 16 Queen Anne residents it was a night about achieving sustainability at the neighborhood level.
In their bi-monthly meeting, members of the nonprofit Sustainable Queen Anne met at the home of organization head Heather Trim to discuss progress on their sustainability projects.
In partnership with Northwest Sustainable Energy for Economic Development (SEED), Solarize Seattle is one of the groups big pushes have been made toward sustainable energy.
"It's rallying neighbors to get together to do a bulk purchase of solar systems," explained Northwest SEED executive director Jennifer Grove. "Buying them in bulk means the contractor saves money on doing all the installs, so it gets a lower price for everyone who participates."
The program has been modeled after the successful 2009 Solarize Portland campaign. According to Grove the efforts brought down the cost of solar systems in Portland by as much as 30 percent and quadrupled the amount of homes using them.
Once the organization chooses a contractor, Queen Anne residents will have the opportunity to sign up for an educational workshop. They may then decide if they want to be a part of it.
The sustainable energy conversation Monday night soon gave way to composting as the group turned their eyes away from the entire neighborhood and toward Coe Elementary School.
Stacy Lawson has worked to bring a compost program to the school. Her efforts with the school led to the program now called Coe Cares.
"Coe Cares is a way for Coe Elementary to provide services and programs to help Coe be a good neighbor," Lawson explained. "We [are] doing really good work but a few of us found that there's a big hole...with the waste that we produce."
Lawson cited the biggest barrier to filling that hole is the $1,000 startup fee. She's currently looking at getting a micro-grant to take care of the money issues. Coe Elementary is the organization's initial focus, but they hope to bring a compost program to all of the Successful Schools in Action campuses.
The members also voted to endorse Referendum 52, which would create $505 million in grants to help schools, colleges, and universities complete energy-saving projects, and to write a letter urging the city to not cut funding for community centers.
Intern Ann Shi offered the most succinct statement of the night about what the organization is all about: "I think the ultimate goal is to achieve more community and sustainability."
Sustainable Queen Anne meets the first Monday of every other month. For more information visit www.sustainablequeenanne.org.[[In-content Ad]]
