GRID Alternatives eNewsletter
CCC Volunteer in the Central Valley Letter from Tom Esqueda, Central Valley Regional Director
Howdy from Fresno! Since we launched GRID Alternatives' newest office here last summer, we've been busy installing solar throughout the Central Valley. Check out a great news segment from a recent installation we did in Porterville (Tulare County) to get a taste of what we've been up to. (Use the "Featured Video" link in the upper left-hand corner of the article.) Thank you to all of our local partners who have helped us get off the ground, including local job training providers like Proteus and the California Conservation Corps, nonprofits like Habitat for Humanity Fresno County and Habitat Tulare County, and government groups like the Tulare County Office of Education. Thanks also to PG&E for donating our new work truck!

We're working to set up our very first Solarthon event here in the Central Valley later this year in the City of Fresno. Contact us and let us know if you're interested in participating as a corporate sponsor or individual fundraiser. And as always we're looking for more volunteers, team leaders, corporate sponsors and other supporters as we work to help more families throughout the Valley lower their electric bills while helping the environment. Happy Trails! --Tom

JobTrainJob Training Partner Profile - JobTrain
GRID Alternatives works closely with job training groups throughout California to provide hands-on experience in solar installation. We help low-income job trainees get the experience they need to land positions in the solar industry by taking what they've learned in the classroom and applying it, by completing real world solar projects in conditions that mimic what they will see in the private sector.

One of our oldest partners is JobTrain, who for more than 40 years has helped over 150,000 low-income individuals through training programs that combine vocational skills, academics, and life skills development. GRID has worked with JobTrain's Solar Training Program on over a dozen installations, and several of their trainees have since gotten jobs in the solar industry. Check out the video on their website with tons of footage of their trainees working on GRID Alternatives installations!

Volunteers completing a system in DavisVolunteer Projects Update
Thanks to everyone who braved the rains and helped us break our record for installations in a quarter again! Since our last newsletter we installed 65 solar electric systems for low-income families in Concord, Davis, El Cajon, Escondido, Fresno, Greenfield, Long Beach, Los Angeles, Lynwood, Oakland, Oceanside, Oxnard, Piru, Pittsburg, Pleasanton, Porterville, Richmond, Riverside, San Diego, San Francisco, San Jose, and Visalia.

We also hit a big milestone this month by training our 4,000th volunteer! For folks interested in becoming a GRID Alternatives volunteer, visit our website and sign up for one of our mailing lists. You can also check out our fancy new online volunteer application that directly interfaces with our Salesforce.com database, courtesy of our amazing AmeriCorps*VISTA members Dan Dumovich and Brendan Beasley. We continue to have the "good problem" that many of our projects and trainings are still getting over-subscribed, so if you don't get in on your first try, hang in there. As always, thank you for your service to your community and the environment!

Google volunteers at Solarthon 2009Solarthon is Going Statewide! Greater LA on June 12th, Bay Area on July 31st, and more
Solarthon is GRID Alternatives' annual solar installation block party and fundraiser. Every year we bring together hundreds of individual and corporate participants to install solar for several homes in one day, in partnership with local low-income homeowners. You can check out photos of last year’s event on PicasaWeb, or watch the video of the event on our website. This year we're hard at work planning Solarthon events around the state!

Our first event on the calendar is our first Greater Los Angeles Solarthon on Saturday, June 12th in the City of Piru - contact Kevin Smith at (310) 324-8146 x306 or ksmith@gridalternatives.org for more information. Our 5th Annual Bay Area Solarthon is tentatively scheduled for Saturday, July 31st in West Oakland - contact Van Shu at (510) 652-4730 x335 or vshu@gridalternatives.org for more info. Details on these and other 2010 Solarthon events will be up on our website in the weeks ahead as they are finalized. You can also become our fan on Facebook to get additional updates!

Thank You!
Thank you to everyone who helped make 2009 a banner year for GRID Alternatives despite the challenging economy. We particularly want to thank the Wells Fargo Foundation, the Richard and Rhoda Goldman Fund, Pacific Gas & Electric Company, and all the individual donors who made year-end contributions to support our work. We also want to thank our newest corporate sponsors from the last quarter, including Hacienda Business Park's "Hacienda Helping Hands" campaign, Grosvenor, the Tulare County Office of Education for sponsoring a recent installation in Porterville, San Francisco Green Drinks for sponsoring a recent San Francisco installation, CalSEIA members in Southern California for providing volunteers and equipment for a recent installation in Long Beach, and Siliken Renewable Energy for sponsoring and providing equipment for our recent installations in Escondido. We also want to thank the San Francisco Department of the Environment for their ongoing support of our work in Bayview/Hunter's Point and Potrero Hill, the City of Bencia, and the San Francisco Human Services Agency for their support through the SF Jobs Now program.

We want to acknowledge the ongoing in-kind support of several companies who provide us with the infrastructure we need to bring our work to scale. Thank you to Winston & Strawn for continuing to provide pro-bono legal services; Salesforce.com for providing us with their online CRM database to manage our contacts, projects, volunteers, donations; Newton Software for providing their online recruiting software; Google for providing donated Apps, AdWords, and Google Checkout services; ClifBar for providing energy bars for our hungry volunteers; and Solmetric for donating another SunEye for our Bay Area office. We also want to thank the producers at Gopher Hole Productions for producing our upcoming client outreach video. Finally, we'd like to thank our in-kind supporters from our holiday Friendraiser event in Oakland, including Bits Limited, the California Academy of Sciences, Earth Presents, Earthlust, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Green Zebra, Honest Beverages, Hybrid Light, Kleen Kanteen, Oakland A's, Piedmont Grocery Company, R&B Cellars, Rebuilding Alliance, and Trader Joe's.

We also want to welcome our new Controller Shana London, our new Outreach Assistant Ronnie Matatquin, our new Construction Assistant Ron Griffin, our new Inland Empire Outreach Coordinator Leida Chambliss and our new Construction Manager Chrissy Thomas. We also want to welcome our newest volunteers from the AmeriCorps*VISTA program - VISTA Leader Katie Kerr, Development Associate Myshel Prasad, and San Diego Volunteer and Training Associate Elyse Wood. Thank you for giving a year to support renewable energy in low-income communities!

GRID Alternatives eNewsletter - Winter 2010
Bay Area/Headquarters: 3833 Manila Avenue, Oakland, CA 94609, (510) 652-4730
Greater Los Angeles: 950 Dovlen Place, Suite B, Carson, CA 90746, (310) 324-8146
San Diego: 1827 Main St. Suite #200 San Diego, CA 92113, (619) 239-4743
Central Valley: 3260 W. Lansing Way, Fresno, CA 93722, (559) 261-4743
www.gridalternatives.org
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