The Sunnyvale Sun

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Volunteers bring bright ideas to homes

By Michael Cronk

Armed with compact flourescent lightbulbs and tip sheets on how to save energy, volunteers recently took their fight against global warming to the doorsteps of Sunnyvale homes.

Green Challenge, a three-year grassroots family volunteer program coordinated by Volunteer Center of Silicon Valley, was held on Sept. 29 in the Sunnyvale neighborhoods of Braly Corners, San Miquel, Sunnyarts, Charles Street, and Stratford Gardens. Residents, acting as volunteers, visited their neighbors with the message that people, by changing their habits at home and work, can improve and protect the environment.

"No real change ever occurs until we take ownership ourselves. We have to start one household at a time,'' said Tim Quigley, executive director of the Volunteer Center of Silicon Valley, at an orientation meeting held in the community room at Fair Oaks Park.

"This is a grassroots civic engagement program.''

At the orientation, the volunteers were given a demonstration of the various energy efficient lightbulbs they would be distributing to their neighbors' homes. They were informed that replacing one regular lightbulb with a compact flourescent lightbulb can save the emission of 150 pounds of carbon dioxide a year.

"There's no silver bullet for solving the problem of global warming,'' said volunteer Barbara Fukumoto. "We all cause global warming so there are no fingers to be pointed. A big piece of the puzzle is people making the changes that are needed. I think this is a start.''

Fukumoto is a member of Cool Cities Sunnyvale, which is part of a nationwide effort started by the Sierra Club. She said national leadership on the issue of global warming has been absent. "We need to do everything we can think of at every level--local, state, national and international.''

Jack Kroll, a longtime Sunnyvale resident and retired IBM programming manager, coordinated the Green Challenge canvass of some 40 households in his Braly Corners neighborhood. Kroll has been environmentally conscious and responsible for decades--he has more than 20 CLF's in his home, drives a Honda Civic Hybrid and a Honda Civic GX natural gas vehicle, and installed a solar hot water system for his home in 1978. Kroll also has a small solar system that generates about 40 percent of his household's electrical needs.

"Everyone seemed to have a pretty good experience,'' said Kroll, of his meeting with neighbors. "We didn't get into a lot of deep conversation, but my impression was that they were fairly knowledgeable about energy use.''

Fukumoto said the volunteers were well received by the homeowners,.adding that, "People couldn't believe we were giving something away.''