By Liz Salmi, community engagement manager, communications liaison, webmaster, social media butterfly, and occasional IT director for Greenwise Joint Venture

Hacker Lab and Code for Sacramento are teaming up to bring the National Day of Civic Hacking to Sacramento, on Friday, May 31 – Saturday, June 1 (dubbed locally as “Hack for Sac”).

The National Day of Civic Hacking–started by the White House–brings together citizens, software developers, and entrepreneurs to collaboratively create, build, and invent new solutions to solve challenges relevant to our neighborhoods and our cities.

This year Hack for Sac will be joined by leaders such as Sacramento City Councilmember Steve Hansen and nonprofit Greenwise Joint Venture to present civic challenges in need of creative input from the community, both techie, and non-tech savvy, alike. Hacker Lab mentors will be on hand to circulate and advise teams on design, organization, marketing and presentation.

Prizes include gift cards to Red Rabbit Kitchen & Bar and de Vere’s Irish Pub. Participants registering in advance will get free lunch from Chipotle and swag, including a $100 credit for Amazon web services.

Hack for Sac
6 p.m., Friday, May 31 to 8 p.m., Saturday June 1

Hacker Lab, 1715 I Street, Sacramento (Map)
View the schedule and register for free at http://hackforsac.eventbrite.com

Note: Participants can take breaks, come and go as they please, go home to sleep, and participate for as long as they are able.

The challenge presented by Greenwise Joint Venture is related to the “Year of Food,” as announced by Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson at his State of the City Address.

The challenge (should you accept it):
Build a solution that encourages local residents and visitors to purchase food grown in the Sacramento region. For example, approaches might deliver a smartphone app for buying food from local farmers and ranchers, or perhaps an online game for eating at restaurants using locally sourced ingredients. All deliciously creative ideas are welcome!

The team who creates the best solution to encourage people to purchase food grown in the Sacramento area will receive recognition from Greenwise Joint Venture, the Sacramento Convention & Visitors Bureau and the Office of Mayor Kevin Johnson.

Code for Sacramento is a Code for America Brigade (think “Peace Corps for geeks”). As a Brigade, they are part of a national network of civic-minded volunteers who contribute their skills toward using the web as a platform for local government and community service.

Register for this event at http://hackforsac.eventbrite.com.

Kathleen Daniels, Climate Corps fellow

Today we are excited to announce we will be hosting a fellow this summer from the Environmental Defense Fund Climate Corps.

Kathleen Daniels comes to us from the University of California, Berkeley, and she is working on a project so top secret that we can’t even mention it right now. (Not really.) (Yes, really.)

Check out the official media release from the Environmental Defense Fund below… or read the original story at EDFClimateCorps.org

EDF Climate Corps Turns Over A New Leaf
By Victoria Mills, Environmental Defense Fund

Today, Environmental Defense Fund launched a new class of EDF Climate Corps fellows to catalyze energy savings in organizations around the country. This year’s class is bigger than ever – with 116 students placed in 106 different organizations. New participants such as Apple, Colgate-Palmolive, General Motors, and the cities of Austin and Philadelphia are joining repeat hosts including AT&T, Facebook, QTS, Verizon, Chicago Public Schools and the New York City Housing Authority.

EDF Climate Corps has grown by leaps and bounds since it started with just seven fellows in 2008. But even more remarkable than the growth in numbers is how EDF Climate Corps has blossomed in other ways – delivering an impact well beyond what we imagined when we started the program. Fellows are working on a wider variety of projects than ever before, networks are sprouting among our hosts and alumni, and smart energy management practices are taking root in our host organizations.

This summer, for example, in addition to traditional efficiency projects like lighting retrofits and HVAC upgrades, EDF Climate Corps fellows will work on energy management strategies, information systems, financing mechanisms and employee engagement campaigns. These new projects, modeled on the Virtuous Cycle of Organizational Energy Efficiency that EDF developed with MIT, go beyond the low-hanging fruit to deliver systemic and lasting reductions in costs and emissions.

EDF Climate Corps is also finding new ways to bring value to participants through our network – which now numbers over 600 current and past fellows and host organizations nationally. This year, in addition to our online engagement and annual in-person gathering, we are activating local EDF Climate Corps networks in cities where we can leverage existing momentum and resources – such as the Boston Green Ribbon Commission and Retrofit Chicago – to build connections and foster peer learning about energy efficiency and smart energy management.

What’s perhaps most rewarding is to see how EDF Climate Corps is changing the way organizations make decisions about energy. Some are hiring energy managers where the position never existed before; others are creating new systems to collect and analyze energy data; still others are introducing new financing mechanisms for energy-saving projects. For example, adidas Group recently announced a new investment fund for efficiency upgrades that delivered a 36% ROI in its first six months.

So as we kick off our sixth year of EDF Climate Corps, we are celebrating the many ways that the program has renewed itself – staying true to its mission to cut costs and emissions, while finding fresh ways to create value for our host organizations and the environment. Stay tuned to the EDF Climate Corps blog all summer to learn more about the exciting new things our fellows are up to!

Handheld laser distance meters are just one of a few specialty tools Pacific Gas & Electric energy specialist Keith Smith is teaching the students to use. The lasers allow them to measure distance from each lighting fixture to the floor of the gym.

The class is taking baseline measurements as part of a larger project to make the gym at Grant High School dramatically brighter, thanks to a $10,000 Bright Ideas grant to the Twin Rivers Unified School District from the Pacific Gas & Electric Company.

Greenwise Joint Venture and the U.C. Davis’ California Lighting Technology Center (CLTC) pledged in-kind support for the project.

See all photos from this project on our Facebook page >>

THE PROBLEM
Grant Union High School was built in 1932, and the current gym (rebuilt after a fire in 1969) is now nearly 40 years old. The environmental science students were horrified to learn the switch used to turn the lights on and off is controlled by a key… and the key was lost years ago, which means that lights have been left running 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

A U.C. Berkeley study warns that 73 percent of California schools are more than 25 years old, and they are starting to fall apart (California’s K-12 Educational Infrastructure Investments). Retrofitting these facilities could make a significant dent in maintenance and utility costs as well as in the greenhouse gas emissions produced by aging structures.

With help from Smith, and Twin Rivers Unified Facilities Manager Tim Bonds, students evaluated the school’s utility bills and calculated the average cost per kilowatt-hour (kWh) to keep the lights on. Students estimate that lighting in just the gym alone costs the school district $14,000 each year.

THE SOLUTION
Lighting retrofits provide a great opportunity for schools to cut costs. Lighting represents approximately 20 percent of electricity use in a K-12 facility and typically does not require major structural changes to buildings.

The CLTC is helping the District evaluate and select new lighting technology for the gym. Over the summer the District will install the lighting; when students return to class in the fall, they should notice a lighter, brighter gym.

A new group of AP environmental science students will be able to tell them just how much brighter. The fall class will measure the amount of light produced by new lighting technology and evaluate the retrofit’s impact on lighting quality, utility costs and the school’s carbon footprint.

“Monitoring and evaluating energy savings from the lighting retrofit provides a real-life learning laboratory,” said teacher Arron White. “I hope this encourages students to consider the possibilities of 21st century ‘green’ careers.”

Greenwise Joint Venture Community Engagement Manager Liz Salmi is helping the class develop a communications plan to educate and engage the Grant Union High School students, faculty and parents about energy efficiency. Students will present their findings to the Twin Rivers Unified School Board at the project’s end.

The District pledged to invest cost savings from this retrofit in other energy saving measures. With the student’s help, they will not only have a clear picture of these savings, but will have demonstrated the effectiveness of new low-energy lighting technologies in the Sacramento region.

Greenwise Project Manager Erika Dimmler planting a tree on the campus of Sacramento High School

By Liz Salmi, community engagement manager

Have you ever wondered why Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson partnered with Greenwise Joint Venture, to execute the “edible schoolyard” model at Sacramento Charter High School, through the leadership of Erika Dimmler, a fellow from Fuse Corps?

Maybe you haven’t wondered that. But Edible Sac High is a perfect example of how Greenwise works. Through partnerships.

Greenwise was gifted with Erika Dimmler in April 2012, and after one full year of working with her we knew we couldn’t let her go.

Erika is now a full time Greenwise staffer.

Check out this video we put together to thank Fuse Corps for sharing her with us, and Sacramento.

Erika Dimmler, project manager

By Erika Dimmler, fellow, Fuse Corps
Project manager, Greenwise Joint Venture

This story originally appeared on HuffingtonPost.com.

In late 2011, I found myself at a career standstill. The company that had given me some of the most amazing experiences of my life seemed unmoored, and I was unmoored with it. Cable news had changed, and, not for the better.

I couldn’t escape it. My career had become repetitious and unfulfilling. It was a small miracle that it had taken fifteen years to reach this point, but at the time this didn’t blunt the disappointment, or the feeling that I had somehow let myself down.

That October, I boarded a flight to Istanbul for a short vacation with an unfinished application on my laptop.

It was for a fellowship with Fuse Corps.

Their mission seemed promising enough:

Fuse Corps enlists entrepreneurial professionals to tackle the nation’s most pressing problems through a one year fellowship with a visionary governor, mayor, or social entrepreneur.

I was a TV news producer for a major cable network that covered world events, not an entrepreneur in the classic sense, really, but wasn’t much of what I did on a daily basis, well, entrepreneurial?

The deadline would pass before my flight would take me back home to the U.S, so completing it required me to put my trip on pause to finish the application. I dragged my feet, literally. But I eventually found a quiet place in the hotel, completed the essay, and hit ‘send.’

I’ve never looked back. My Fuse Corps fellowship placed me in Sacramento’s city hall, working with Mayor Kevin Johnson. The issue? Food justice. A few months prior to my arrival, Mayor Johnson had partnered with Alice Waters, the doyenne of California’s food movement, to create a program modeled after Berkeley’s Edible Schoolyard Project. The curriculum aims to create a school garden and kitchen classroom that provides a food-based education to a population of students who may not normally be exposed to healthy choices in their everyday lives. But because of Mayor Johnson’s strong leadership, Sacramento would also go a step further — we would expand the school cafeteria to provide fresh, sustainable, local fare on a daily basis. Only this cafeteria would be run as a business, by the students and for the students. In this model, teens create the menus and budget plans, encourage and foster relationships with area farmers and purveyors, and take the lead in making sure their peers have access to the kind of sustenance that adequately fuels both their classroom minutes and afterschool activities while stimulating their young and adventurous minds. This path would set the stage for a transformative experience unparalleled in most high schools.

One year later we’ve established a roster of community partnerships, won grants, begun the RFP process for a new food service provider, hosted food tastings (in conjunction with Dr. Oz’s Health Corps) and are poised to build out our garden space this summer. In just twelve months, students have become more aware of the importance of what they put in their bodies, and more attuned to the lack of food choices available in their communities. And most importantly, trying (and liking) their fruits and veggies.

…

Read the full story on HuffingtonPost.com.

Click to download this flier as a full page PDF

Cause an effect, one responsibly raised burrito at a time

Make lunch or dinner a selfless act by joining any Sacramento-area Chipotle Mexican Grill for a fundraiser from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Wednesday, May 1, 2013.

Bring in this flier and 50 percent of the proceeds will benefit Edible Sac High—the school garden program at Sacramento High School.

Wednesday, May 1
11 a.m.-7 p.m.
Sacramento-area Chipotle restaurants, including restaurants in:
West Sacramento, Elk Grove, Citrus Heights, Davis, Roseville, Folsom, Lodi and Placerville

Chipotle also allows digital versions of this flier saved to a smartphone upon checkout. Share this with your friends!

Download a PDF of one flier

Download a PDF of two fliers on one page

Edible Sac High is modeled after The Edible Schoolyard at Berkeley’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Middle School started by Alice Waters in 1996: a one-acre garden, a kitchen-classroom, and an “eco-gastronomic” curriculum. The Edible Schoolyard is nationally recognized for its efforts to integrate gardening, cooking, and sharing school lunch into the core academic curriculum.

The Edible Sac High garden initially involves 90 students, or 10 percent of Sac High’s student population. Eventually, Sacramento Charter High School will have a cafeteria run like a business with full involvement by the students.

Initial investment was made possible through Greenwise Joint Venture and Fuse Corps.

Join Save Our Sandhill Cranes for its fourth annual hosting of the Wild & Scenic Film Festival On Tour, Saturday, May 10, at the Crest Theatre. Proceeds from the festival benefit the California Heartland Project, the regional conservation vision of Habitat2020 through the Environmental Council of Sacramento (ECOS). Festival tickets are $10, or $15 with reception and food.

Wild & Scenic On Tour is a customized selection of films from the larger festival held annually in January. Films cover a variety of topics, including: wildlife, nature, energy, water, environmental/social justice, conservation, adventure, agriculture and youth.

“In our busy lives it’s easy to get disconnected from the global ecosystem, and the films at Wild & Scenic reconnect people to the environment while having fun,” said, Lori Van Laanen, tour manager for the Wild & Scenic Film Festival. “We hope these beautiful films from around the region, the country, and the world, will inspire Sacramentans to take action on critical local issues.”

Friday, May 10, 2013
Reception starts at 5 p.m. | Films run 6:30-9:30 p.m.
Crest Theater, 1013 K Street, Sacramento, CA 95814
Reception and films: $15 (includes food and raffle ticket)
Films only: $10 (includes one raffle ticket)
Buy tickets online

For more information contact Matthew Baker, habitat manager for the Environmental Council of Sacramento, at (916) 202-9093 or habitat @ ecosacramento.net.

Save our Sandhill Cranes (SOS Cranes) is a nonprofit dedicated to maintaining open space habitat and the conservation of the California Central Valley’s sandhill crane populations through education, outreach and community activism. SOS Cranes organization has chosen the California Heartland Project as the beneficiary of the festival proceeds.

PG&E’s Keith Smith helps a Grant Union High School student learn about energy efficiency.

The gym at Grant Union High School will be dramatically brighter next year thanks to a $10,000 grant to the Twin Rivers Unified School District from the Pacific Gas & Electric Company.  Greenwise Joint Venture and the California Lighting Technology Center (CLTC) at U.C. Davis pledged in-kind support for the project.

The CLTC will help the school district evaluate and select new lighting technology. Greenwise will work with Grant High’s AP Environmental Science students to evaluate the retrofit’s impact on lighting quality, costs and the school’s carbon footprint.

Students will develop a communication plan to educate and engage the high school in energy efficiency, and will present their findings to the Twin Rivers Unified School District at the project’s end.

“By demonstrating the effectiveness of low-energy lighting technologies, this project has the potential to facilitate public investment in energy efficiency,” said Julia Burrows, president and executive director of Greenwise Joint Venture. “Engaging students in monitoring and evaluating energy savings from the lighting retrofit provides a real-life learning laboratory and encourages students to consider the possibilities of 21st century ‘green’ careers.”

The “30k Trees” campaign started off on March 7, 2012–California Arbor Day. In the first 30 days, businesses, volunteer organizations and individuals made more than 31,000 tree-planting pledges at 30kTrees.com.

“The 30k Trees campaign gave us a chance to set the bar high and let the community rise to the tree challenge,” said Ray Tretheway, executive director of the Sacramento Tree Foundation. “By adding trees to the Sacramento region we are growing a healthy, livable community, and the response has been remarkable.”

Over a 20-year period, 30,000 trees could collect 8.5 million tons of carbon, capture 11 million gallons of stormwater, and remove 110,000 pounds of pollutants from the air.

“When our city was founded 164 years ago we had very few trees. Now we are the largest hand-planted urban forest in the country,” said Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson. “Today’s city forest is a gift from past generations—we plant trees today to benefit those who come after us.”

Students at Pacific Elementary School are planting more than 20 trees on campus. Each classroom pledged to adopt and care for a tree over the next three years–a critical development phase in a tree’s life.

As of today’s date more than 24,000 trees have been planted in the Sacramento area thanks to this campaign.

Tree plantings are scheduled throughout March with celebrations for California Arbor Week running from March 7 through 14. Events can be found on the Sacramento Tree Foundation’s website, and volunteers can sign up at SacTree.com.

Businesses, residents and organizations in the Sacramento region can still participate in the 30k Trees campaign. Visit 30kTrees.com and log any trees planted between March 1, 2012 and March 31, 2013.

Sacramento was recognized in a February 2013 report by the nonprofit American Forests as one of the “Top U.S. Cities for Urban Forests.” The 30k Trees campaign ensures the region will continue this proud legacy.

###

About the Sacramento Tree Foundation
The Sacramento Tree Foundation is a nonprofit organization working to grow healthy, livable communities in the Sacramento region by building the best regional urban forest in the nation. We are leading the effort to plant 5 million trees in the Sacramento region.
SacTree.com

About Greenwise Joint Venture
Greenwise Joint Venture is a high-impact, regional organization focused on transforming the Sacramento area into the greenest region in the country and a hub for clean technology.
GreenwiseJV.org

MEDIA

FOX 40: Kevin Johnson Encourages Students to Think Green
KCRA: Photos: Student celebrate Arbor Day
UNIVISION: Sacramento celebra la “Semana del Árbol”

Making the Sacramento area the ‘Emerald Valley,’ the greenest region in the country

In his fifth State of the City speech, Mayor Kevin Johnson highlighted unique opportunities the Sacramento region must seize if it hopes to continue to grow its economy.

“What defines us as a city is our resolve, our determination, our collaboration and our dedication. No other city and region has fought as hard to do what’s right for our future,” Mayor Johnson said.

In front of more than 3,500 guests, Mayor Johnson described the need to continue transforming the Sacramento region into the “Emerald Valley” through green initiatives and industry.

“Over the last four years we’ve brought hundreds of millions of dollars in investment into the city to retrofit our buildings. We also planted more than 30,000 trees, created new green companies and established the Greenwise Joint Venture.

“While we’ve done a lot, there is more work to be done to accomplish our goal of turning the Sacramento region into the Emerald Valley,” Johnson said.

The Mayor reaffirmed his commitment to making Sacramento the greenest region in the country by announcing 2013 will be Sacramento’s “Year of Food.” As part of the pledge, the Mayor said there will be one event per month for the next year that will focus on high quality food in the region. Events include: Restaurant week, food education week in schools, food festivals and highlights of chefs throughout the region.

Mayor Johnson announced the creation of a reality TV series known as “The Change Game.” Segments will air on KVIE Public Television. The program hosted by Sacramento High School grad and New York University drama student Tre’von Lyle, will follow teams of teens competing to see who can produce the greatest positive change in food access in a city.

The Mayor continues to encourage and support organizations and entrepreneurs creating jobs in the green sector.

Full transcript of the Mayor’s speech can be viewed online: cityofsacramento.org/mayor