Berkeley: This week in Berkeley we had another awesome week! Once again we serviced 3 more Berkeley Co-ops (Cloyne, Wilde, and Davis) as well as two 15-room apartment complexes. Additionally, we serviced 20 more single family residence units. Meanwhile, on Thursday, our outreach manager, Ross, along with Keisha, Tyler, and Corey, canvassed at the Rose Street Farmer’s market in Berkeley, where we shared a table with PG&E Energy Partners! Also on Thursday, BET came to film one of our ESes, Waleena Griffin, for one of their upcoming television programs that is scheduled to air in September! Finally, this Friday we had a great Professional Development lesson wherein we learned all about Personal Health and Nutrition. Please enjoy the pictures of our ESes servicing various Co-ops and also Keisha’s 20th birthday celebration (which happened last Friday)! -John
San Leandro: Another awesome week at the San Leandro site! We worked the Farmer’s Market again, earning enough sign-ups to fill up a bunch of sign-up sheets. This last Thursday was the busiest day of the summer, with eighteen Green House Calls, but everyone stayed upbeat and enthusiastic throughout the long day. The San Leandro site is also excited to welcome one more Energy Specialist to our wonderful team. All the ESes are super close by now and did an excellent job welcoming our newest member. Lastly, for lunch next Friday, our site is planning a multicultural potluck after our professional development lesson. Any HQ staff are welcome to attend. Go San Leandro!-Will
Livermore: It’s been a successful week in the Livermore site. We’ve been booking more appointments than ever and are on track for meeting all of our goals! We had an Energy Specialist get really sick so I had to step up and take his place. It was a good experience getting to work as an ES again. We were able to step up and get just as much done as if the ES had been at work. Although I will say, we’re glad to have him back. This week has been great for getting sign-ups too and we have our last week booked and this next week is looking pretty good as well. Not much else to report from the site. We’re just getting our work done and having a blast. Hope everyone else is doing well!-Drew
Pleasanton: The office is doing extremely well! We have changed over 500 15w flood lights! We have beat our goal by 200%! We are halfway to our GHC goal of 250 with 2 weeks to go. So far one of our teams has changed 93 light bulbs in one home! The Energy Specialists are still in competition for changing the most light bulbs and getting the most referrals. A little competition is never a bad thing! This was the first week of pipe insulation and our team is almost out. I am so impressed with how smart they are and how quickly they grasped the pipe insulation concepts. Everyone is really giving it their best. As the end of the summer gets closer our waitlist gets longer and longer. I am looking forward to the BBQ and having some fun with the other teams and eating some really good food! TTFN-Jasmin
Richmond: The Richmond Office is on FIRE!!! Despite being moved into a tiny office (our other one is being painted) we’re still pulling through and servicing those homes! We’ve been changing up the teams and increased each team’s load to four GHCs per day. This week we’ve also increased the ESes responsibilities and had them call and schedule appointments. They’re definitely learning a lot and looking and sounding incredibly professional. You should have seen the hustle-O-meter yesterday at the Point Richmond Farmer’s Market as each team stopped by, talked to the community, and scheduled tons of appointments! We also had a very successful torchiere swap, which seemed to attract a lot of potential customers. The Richmond Team is growing very close, and we’re very sad that there are only 2 weeks left =( We can’t wait for the BBQ though! Louis has been gone for a few days so I’ve been doing both house calls and outreach, which has been a new, fun and interesting experience. – Alex Acuna, Energy Specialist
Fremont: It is week five in Fremont, a.k.a. Torchiere City, and we have received almost $100 from a local recycling facility just by dropping off all of the halogen floor lamps we swapped out! “Darren and I had to drive on a scale,” says Energy Specialist Gianni. “We had to wear hard hats, too.” This week, Fremont has taken recycling to a new level. Thanks to our site manager, Darren, and me, Arbaz, we have constructed a fort out of torchiere packaging. We use our clever invention as a colossal recycling bin for all our paper and empty CFL boxes, in hopes of gaining a little incentive money with it as well. This week was pretty tough for our team, however we have been doing an amazing job overcoming challenging obstacles. From six-bedroom houses to dealing with difficult clients, I feel our team can stand strong and take on any situation they find themselves in.-Arbaz
Emeryville/Albany: This exceptionally long week in Emeryville/Albany was interesting. We struggled to get Green House Calls for the entire week and pulled through strong. We had to move sites on Friday July 29, 2011. It will be a hard transition but I believe we will manage greatly. The space is smaller, so maybe there will be a lot more team building! I’m excited for the new site, as it will not change our Green House Call success rate! =) Lets Get Some! Go Team Go!-Ilana
Hayward: This week in Hayward has been our best yet. We were able to score a whole apartment complex and working on another one. We also recycled only 19 torchieres and made $50! Were so excited to use the money to celebrate all the hard work the ESes have been doing. We cant wait to see who wins the the most referrals from all the teams in our site! It’s a sweet and sour feeling that we’re in the fifth week, but we’re trying to meet our site goals to the fullest and enjoy the time we have together!-Isabela
San Mateo: Hey there! Week four of Green House Calls has now come to a close, and things are getting pretty exciting around here. This week we matched our previous high for Green House Calls with 57. At the beginning of the week, there were plenty of openings in our schedule, but Marissa did a fantastic job of tabling, canvassing and scheduling referrals to fill us up.
It is easy to say that this was our most diverse week in terms of homes we are serving. We had one bedroom homes, an eight bedroom home, and everything in between. In addition, we are serving more and more Spanish speaking members of the community, which is fantastic.
Professional development for this week was resume writing. This lesson lasted the entire hour and a half, and appeared to be super helpful for each and every Energy Specialist. This position is the first employment that some of the youth have had, so this development was especially valuable to them.
Only two weeks remain for the California Youth Energy Services program, and there are not too many Green House Calls that stand in the way of meeting our goal to complete 300 for the summer. Our Energy Specialists and managers alike are confident that we can keep the same pace and meet this mark in the next two weeks.-Daniel
