Since 2000, Rising Sun has been challenging youth to spend their summers helping communities to conserve energy and water, while also earning a paycheck. That means for 18 years our California Youth Energy Services (CYES) program has been uniquely combating climate change by empowering, employing, and educating youth between the ages of 15 -24 to give back to communities while conserving energy and water. This year, Rising Sun partnered with cities in Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, San Joaquin, Solano, and Sonoma counties. CYES employed 157 youth, who in just 6 weeks served 4,471 residences with no-cost Green House Calls!

A Green House Call is Rising Sun’s unique home efficiency assessment and upgrade service performed by local youth. After assessing the home at a pre-arranged appointment, the youth install water- and energy-saving measures such as LED light bulbs, kitchen and bathroom faucet aerators, efficient-flow showerheads and Tier 2 powerstrips that help combat phantom energy usage. This summer, our youth installed over 33,000 LED light bulbs. If you’re curious to learn about our other installation numbers, check out our Program Report.

At Rising Sun, we not only focus on the community impacts, but we take pride in the impact we have on all the youth we hire over the summer. This summer, over 90% of our youth said this was their first green job, and over 85% reported an increase in overall skill development. Our California Youth Energy Services program invests in the future of youth by providing them with meaningful work experience, along with valuable training and professional development on topics such as financial management, cover letter and resume writing, and interview preparation.

This year, we added some valuable components for our 13 Leaders-In-Field-Training (LIFT) youth who serve as junior managers at each of the sites. In partnership with Accenture, the LIFT visited Accenture’s headquarters and learned first- hand how to land their next job in an amazing 3-hour workshop.The LIFT also went on a day long field trip to the state capitol to meet with legislators and learn about how ordinary citizens can actively participate in the legislative process.

Our professional development, didn’t stop there. This year we partnered with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and took more than twenty youth to the lab where they participated in a design challenge to make a home as close to zero net energy as possible on a $10,000 budget. The panelists who determined the winner were Mara Lockowandt from Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, a representative from Congresswoman Barbara Lee’s office, and a representative from Senator Nancy Skinner’s office.

This program does more than just educate youth on the importance of environmental conservation; it exposes them to green career opportunities. Over 70% of our youth employees said their future plans were positively impacted by the CYES program.

This summer, Energy Specialists across 13 site offices installed a total of 49,821 energy- and water-saving measures, providing annual savings of approximately 782,166 kilowatt hours of electricity, 2,290 natural gas therms, and 14.8 Million gallons of water per minute of usage, preventing 594 metric tons of CO2 emissions. This is equivalent to avoiding CO2 greenhouse gas emissions from 1.4 million miles driven by an average passenger vehicle.

To-date, Rising Sun has employed 1,690 youth, and has served 42,667 homes with Green House Calls.

Now that’s what we call a lasting impact!

Next year we plan to train and employ more youth, serve more community members, and have another record-breaking impactful year. Be sure to stay tuned – Rising Sun’s CYES program is making quite the ripple.