Earlier this week, Project Porchlight was featured in an article in the Burlington Free Press. The article relates to our campaign and to our Volunteer Rally held on June 21 in City Hall Park and features Chris Burns of Burlington Electric Department, as well as Heidi Conant, Project Porchlight's Vermont Campaign Coordinator:
Saving the Planet One Bulb at a Time
How do you feel about saving more than $1.7 million just by changing a light bulb?
Those participating in Project Porchlight, a community-based energy efficiency campaign, could contribute to such results, said Heidi Conant, the Project Porchlight campaign coordinator. Project
Porchlight volunteers will deliver 36,000 compact fluorescent light bulbs to residents of the Burlington area by the end of July to save communities energy and money, Conant said.
"We're asking people to go into communities, knock on doors and engage neighbors," Conant said. "It's friends telling friends how they can make a difference by changing a light bulb."
By replacing 36,000 incandescent light bulbs with CFL bulbs, Vermonters will cut down on carbon dioxide emissions by 8,000 tons through the lifespan of the CFL bulbs, Conant said.
To salute volunteers, Project Porchlight will hold a celebratory rally today at City Hall Park. Music and speeches will fill the event from 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Ben and Jerry's and American Flatbread Burlington Hearth will provide free ice cream and flatbread to attendees. "We want to show appreciation for our volunteers and show interest in the community to have them volunteer, as well," Conant said.
The Burlington Electric Department and Efficiency Vermont sponsor Project Porchlight, providing funding and support for the campaign.
"It's something that came to our attention, along with Efficiency Vermont's, about a year and a half ago through the energy efficiency circles we travel in," said Chris Burns, director of energy services at the Burlington Electric Department. "It's an intriguing idea and great way to get a community to start talking about the importance of energy issues."
Burns said that Project Porchlight can help motivate people who have not had any experience using energy efficient lighting.
"It's really an awareness campaign," Burns said. "If you're going to buy anything that uses energy, think about the more energy efficient models available.
"One of the strongest points of Project Porchlight is that amazing things can happen when a whole lot of people in a community take combined steps to save energy," Burns said.
The state of Vermont assists in making CFL bulbs affordable. It subsidizes the cost so that people can purchase a CFL bulb for about a dollar instead of $3 or $4, Conant said.
Vermont is the first state to participate in Project Porchlight. The project began in 2004 in Canada when founder Stuart Hickox discovered that if every household in Canada replaced one incandescent light bulb with a CFL bulb, the reduction in pollution would equal that of removing 66,000 cars from the road. The campaign has distributed 1.15 million bulbs throughout Canada.
"It's saving Canadians millions of dollars, so it's doing great things," Conant said.
So far, more than 300 Project Porchlight volunteers have distributed almost 5,000 CFL bulbs in Vermont, Conant said. The campaign reaches out to Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, schools, local government, family and friends for assistance, she said.
A group of volunteers from the Governor's Institute of Engineering at the University of Vermont will wear paper wings and hand out bulbs to residents of Winooski as "energy efficiency angels," Conant said.
Project Porchlight plans to spread to states beyond Vermont.
"If everyone in North America were to change just one light bulb for a CFL, it would save millions of dollars," Conant said.