07/03/2013
Neighbors Help Neighbors Go Green - By Dylan Baddour
More than 25 volunteers turned out Saturday, June 29th to renovate the home of a local Holly neighborhood resident near the corner of Robert Martinez Jr. St. and Canterbury St.
The Holly Neighbors Helping Neighbors organization teamed up with non-profit organizations Climate Buddies and 1 House at a Time, as well as a workforce of local resident volunteers to carry out green and eco-friendly upgrades on the home to decrease utility costs and energy consumption.
“The idea was to get together on a project to help people in the neighborhood get to know each other and to help them save money,” said Elizabeth Walsh, a founding member of Holly Neighbors Helping Neighbors and a leader in the project.
Walsh founded the initiative in an attempt to help long-time neighborhood residents cope with rising costs instigated by gentrification in the area. Saturday’s project, the most recent of three since Holly Neighbors Helping Neighbors was approved for city funding in 2011, was done on the home of a local grandmother and volunteer at Martin Middle School, where Walsh met her and pitched the idea of the home renovations.
“When she said it’d be energy efficient and that I could save a lot of money on my utility bills I said well that’s something I’d be interested in,” Gloria said as volunteers scampered around her home renovating and rearranging. “Now I think it’s going to be awesome. My grandkids will have a place to watch their TV after school.”
The technicalities of the construction were planned and administrated by Shiloh Travis, a registered green builder in Austin’s green builder program, and an affiliate of 1 House at a Time, an Austin-based non-profit which specialized in eco-friendly and sustainable building techniques.
Under Travis’ direction, the volunteers installed new attic insulation, a new bath fan, new air conditioning unit, new front door, new solar screens and new light bulbs, rain gutters and rain barrel, replaced the toilet flush valve, and caulked over cracks in the house’s siding. Travis considered the tasks typical of his work with 1 House at a Time.
Another local organization, Climate Buddies, also joined in the initiative. Climate Buddies chair and founder, Joep Meijer, was at the worksite to address the volunteers at the onset and to direct tasks as they arose. Climate Buddies is a non-profit organization for environmental consulting which helps individuals and companies formulate policies less taxing on the environment and less expensive to maintain.
Meijer founded Climate Buddies in 2011 in an effort to add education to the logistics of combatting climate change.
“We wanted to work with local people and we wanted to be grass-roots and non-political. I thought what better to work with people on than climate change. It’s one of the biggest challenges mankind is facing today,” said Meijer. “Now these are people making a difference and taking charge, taking time to take care of the social fabric. Anyway, you can never have too many friends in your neighborhood.”
