Our California Youth Energy Services (CYES) program achieved record-breaking impacts this year! For seven weeks this summer, Rising Sun employed 132 young adults ages 15 to 22 as Energy Specialists or Leaders-in-Field-Training (junior managers), providing them with intensive training in energy efficiency and water conservation and equipping them with the knowledge and skills to perform Green House Calls.
At each Green House Call, which comes at no cost to the community members who receive our services, Energy Specialists assess the home for efficiency, install energy and water-saving equipment, and provide personalized recommendations for further savings. Last summer, CYES operated sites in 10 cities and served 2,655 households. This year we expanded the program to 15 cities and smashed our goal of serving 3,750 households by serving over 4,300 homes! Two sites beat the previously-held site record, hitting or exceeding 400 homes each!
To celebrate the hard work and great success of the CYES program, Rising Sun’s Leaders-in-Field-Training (LIFT) hosted an end-of-summer barbeque, bringing together the staff from every site that CYES operated in this summer. Nearly 200 youth, Site Managers, and other Rising Sun staff gathered at the Joaquin Miller Park in Oakland on a beautiful sunny afternoon to have fun and acknowledge the meaningful impact that the entire CYES team made in our communities and for our planet this year.
This year, CYES operated in 15 cities in 4 counties: Antioch, Benicia, Dublin, Fairfield, Fremont, Hayward, Martinez, Novato, Oakland, Pleasanton, Richmond, San Rafael, Union City, Vacaville, and Vallejo. Energy Specialists across all sites installed a total of 44,768 energy and water saving measures, providing annual savings of approximately 840,993 kilowatt hours of electricity, 12,287 natural gas therms, and 3,007 gallons of water per minute of usage. 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. Check out this CBS news segment that we were featured in!
