Any day now, local nonprofit green|spaces should hear back from Georgetown University about whether or not its multi-year Empower program has won a national competition to find no- and low-cost ways to decrease energy usage.
But whether or not Chattanooga beats out 49 other communities to be declared the winner of the $5 million prize, the three-year program has had a lasting impact on residents in Highland Park, East Lake, Alton Park and beyond, said Empower Program Coordinator Sam Fulbright.
From community meetings to ask residents what they see as the biggest needs, to energy efficiency workshops and partnerships to connect communities to other area organizations, residents who have attended Empower workshops have seen more than 15 percent energy savings, on average. And, Fulbright said, with door-to-door conversations and workshops offered in Spanish, the number of people the program is able to reach and assist continues to grow.
"It's really about putting [the residents] in the driver's seat, because they are the ones who know what their communities need," he said of Empower, which seeks to reduce its role to a background facilitator available to help residents with projects they come up with.
"As a community-based program, you always want your program to be able to live on without you," he explained. "We want to create that self-sustaining legacy."
For Churchville Neighborhood Association President Joyce Watson, that legacy begins with a light bulb: an LED light bulb, specifically.
Watson won a grant through green|spaces to provide free LED porch lights to residents along Robbins and Jackson streets, Citico Avenue and Walker Road. The hope, she said, is to teach residents that an LED bulb can be left on all night for less than the standard cost for two hours of regular bulb usage.
"If everyone has a light bulb on, it makes the neighborhood safer for everyone," she said.
Watson said she personally leaves a bulb on all night at her own home, and uses it as a conversation starter about energy saving opportunities for others in the neighborhood.
"I want to use my house as an example for what small changes can make," the 28-year neighborhood resident said. "Just these little changes can make a big difference to residents in our community. And it's easy."