Archive: Around Town

In collaboration with 300 "Into-The-Streets" Cornell student volunteers, (organized by the Cornell Public Service Center and with funding from Cargill and NYSERDA), Cornell Cooperative Extension of Tompkins County (CCETC) successfully distributed almost 5000 energy efficiency packets to households across Tompkins County on the afternoon of Sat. Oct. 30, 2010, and initiative known as "Lighten Up Tompkins" (see LightenUpTompkins.org for the full scope of materials and information distributed.)

Of those who received those educational packets, 500 households have now signed the "Energy Pledge" - taking their initial steps on the Path to Energy Savings.

In a drawing on Dec. 7th, (and announced at the Tompkins County Legislature meeting,) 26 prizes valued at over $2,000 were won by some of those early Pledge submissions, and additional pledges are encouraged.

"Any Tompkins County resident can help build momentum toward a sustainable future while saving dollars - in perpetuity - after taking steps toward greater energy efficiency by making their Pledge via our website or returning their pledge form," states Shawn Lindabury, Community Energy Educator for Cornell Cooperative Extension of Tompkins County. "We are engaging stakeholders across the community spectrum to create a multi-year county-wide energy efficiency campaign," continued Lindabury.

Those who return their Pledges will get personal and individualized follow-up from staff and trained interns at Cooperative Extension. "Each household has the potential to save thousands of dollars on energy costs by reducing their energy use, while helping the county achieve it's bold goal of reducing carbon emissions for the benefit of us all," summarized Michael Koplinka-Loehr, Sr. Energy Management Coordinator for the Town of Lansing, former chair of the Tompkins County legislature and member of the "Lighten Up Tompkins" implementation team.  "If we all do a little bit we can have a big impact."

Future strategies that are in the planning or pilot phases for county-wide application include: Energy Circles, House Parties, Case Management, profiling Case Studies, developing a county-wide tracking database of impacts from energy savings and Organizational/Business/Community Center based strategies.

"The Energy Circles idea is essentially a group of friends, neighbors preferably, who agree to taking turns helping each other perform energy efficiency tasks while having fun together. Support and information is available as necessary from CCE, and results can be fed into a database to compare savings with neighbors," mentioned Anne Rhodes, another Lighten-Up-Tompkins team member and Dryden Solutions project coordinator, through a grant as one of two 2010-2011 Cornell Civic Leaders Fellows. "Our region can be a national leader in modeling energy solutions while strengthening community," added Rhodes.

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