We have Power!

Friends! I am very excited to announce that this afternoon at 5:15 pm we hooked into our solar array. I was accompanied by Myla Ablog, Herons Head Park Manager; John, our Americorp intern; Joel of Lorax Developers, as well as the good folks at Occidental Power; and Mike, of All-Around-Electric.

We celebrated this moment by plugging in a power tool! As soon as we pulled the power tool out, one of the good men from Rebuilding Together came over to ask if he can charge up his iphone. Welcome to the 21st Century! This was indeed an incredibly exciting moment to be able to connect right into our power source, and know that our local power utility [whose name will go unmentioned] was providing us with absolutely zero power backup!

I am proud to announce that we are generating our own power and we are independent of the non-renewable energy czars!

Laurie

Salesforce, Rebuilding Together, and Literacy for Environmental Justice Team up!

We are getting ready for a big day this week. On Tuesday November 17th over 200 high-tech volunteers who will be in town for Salesforce.Com's Dreamforce Conference, will be coming to the EcoCenter to paint, tile, side, landscape, and install cabinetry at the EcoCenter! This represents an effort by the good folks at Salesforce.com and Rebuilding Together to "raise the roof" on a capital project in San Francisco that has been over 11 years in the making. Yesterday I spent eight hours with the incredible staff at Rebuilding Together, Orlanda and Kat and all of the professional folks they bring to the table to help ready the building for the big day. We primed and trimmed and cut our paths in preperation for the big workday

This is an incredibly exciting moment for our team and the community we serve!

This is the kind of infusion of energy we need to take the project to the finish line!

Here's a great quote from our press release:

“This workday is bringing us a thousand hours closer to opening the EcoCenter’s doors,” said Malik Looper, executive director of Literacy for Environmental Justice (LEJ). “The EcoCenter is a source of great pride in our community, and we welcome the contribution of Rebuilding Together and all those who want to build a more sustainable future for our youth.”

This workday is the largest that RTSF has hosted in its 20-year history. “This is the perfect project, and Dreamforce is the perfect partner,” said Karen Nemsick, RTSF’s executive director.

EcoCenter Solar Array Installed Today!

It is with great pleasure I get ready to go down to the site this morning to watch our solar array being installed-the last two weeks Oxypower's team has been spending preparing the roof for our modules. Today is the day our 24 BP modules are launched on our building! Kristine Enea's Film crew-Shooterkat will be with us to witness this milestone moment. Installation will occur from 9am-4pm today. Come on down!

Pictures from San Francisco Planning and Urban Research (SPUR)

We had a wonderful day on August 20th introducing members of SPUR to Herons Head Park and to the EcoCenter! The team from the Port of San Francisco introduced the history of Herons Head Park.

Malik Looper, LEJ's Executive Director gave a commanding presentation about Environmental Justice and the importance of physical pilot projects.

We then brought the group inside to show the progress we are making so far!

It was a great day for all of us!

EcoCenter Welcomes Department of the Environment to the Center for the First time!

We had a wonderful day showing Jared Blumenfield and Ray Manion from the SF Enviroment to the building today! We owe so much to SFE for their incredible committment to the vision of the EcoCenter Project throughout so many years! Today we welcomed Jared to the building for the first time!

SPUR and NAWIC Host EcoCenter Tours!

Thursday August 13th 5-6pm. National Women in Construction San Francisco Chapter sponsors walking tour and dinner. www.nawicsanfrancisco.com.

Thursday August 20th 12-1pm. San Francisco Planning and Research Association (SPUR) sponsors Brown Bag Lunch.

Thank you Mayors Community Challenge Grant and the SFPUC!

Friends, I am so happy and honored to report that we have been awarded the Mayors Community Challenge Grant http://www.sfgov.org/site/ccg_index.asp as part of Mayor Newsom's Livable City Initiative http://www.livablecity.org/ for our Rainwater Harvesting System! This particular grant is a partnership between the Mayors CCG program and the San Francisco Public Utilities Low Impact Development Solutions Team! This grant will enable us to purchase a beautiful corrugated steel tank that we will use to capture the rainwater that falls on the EcoCenter roof to be used as the primary water source for the toilets in the building as an alternative to using Hetch Hetchy Water. We will be able to offer a fantastic educational learning opportunity, feature a sustainable water conservation solution, while practicing water savings!

Check out some of the images of our selected tank as well as an interesting article on choosing your tank and an overview of SFPUC's amazing work:

http://www.winebusiness.com/wbm/?go=getArticle&dataId=50707
http://sfwater.org/mto_main.cfm/MC_ID/14/MSC_ID/361/MTO_ID/559
http://www.harvesth2o.com/






Laurie