THANK YOU!
By: Chris Porter,
Development Director
Thank you!
This fall, Bluegrass Greensource celebrated its 15th anniversary. During that time, we have worked directly in communities throughout Central Kentucky to help people take the small steps in their daily lives that will add up to big impacts on our shared environment.
As we ramped up our end-of-year fundraising efforts, we were reminded of the deep community support that has been a part of our story thus far. Through this year’s Good Giving Challenge and other fundraising efforts, you stepped up to help us raise $5,190 through 68 donations!
This is funding that will be used to bolster standards-based, community-focused environmental education. Your support will helps us conduct important events, like Home Energy Workshops for the Lexington refugee communities that provide simple and effective ways to increase their home comfort and save money on their utility bills; or lead a cohort of Central Kentucky public school teachers on an exploration of the role that coal has played in Kentucky’s environmental, economic, and cultural history, while also exploring the important conversations and work being done in eastern Kentucky as those same communities look to a future beyond coal; or to simply continue our work with children in the more than 4,000 classrooms that our educators reach every year.
Your support and that of many other Central Kentuckians like who share your beliefs help make all of this possible. Thank you for supporting Bluegrass Greensource this fall and helping us start off our 16th year on the right foot!
Save the Date for Main Street Clean Sweep: April 22, 2017!
By: Ashley Bryant-Cheney,
Environmental Educator & Volunteer Coordinator
At Bluegrass Greensource, we are getting ready for Earth Day! Yes, we know that it is only February, but April is just around the corner. Our big annual event for Earth Day is Main Street Clean Sweep! Main Street Clean Sweep is a community-led litter clean-up. Bluegrass Greensource provides bags, gloves, litter grabbers, and event t-shirts to participants.
Every year volunteers, community groups, families, churches, and local governments get together to clean-up 20 communities around the Bluegrass. In 2016, 1,000 volunteers came together in 22 Central Kentucky communities to pick up 515 bags of litter (over FOUR TONS of waste)!
This year Main Street Clean Sweep is on a Saturday, and we are looking for volunteers all across the Bluegrass to get involved in cleaning up their communities! Do you know of an area in your community that could really use some TLC? Plan to join us on April 22nd this year! There’s no better way to celebrate Earth Day!
For more information on Main Street Clean Sweep, click here, or send me an email at Ashley@bggreensource.org!
Education Spotlight: Teacher Trip to the E.W. Brown Generating Station
By: Mallory Johnson,
Americorps VISTA
Thanks to the support from the Department of Energy Development, on January 17th Bluegrass Greensource took teachers and our Environmental Educators on a tour of RossTarrant Architects and E.W. Brown Generating Station.
Our day began with a tour and educational visit at RossTarrant Architects, an educational architecture firm located in Lexington, KY. Ross Tarrant is a leader nationally in sustainable design, and is the only 100% educational architecture firm in Kentucky. They are also a pilot member of the City of Lexington’s GreenCheck program, a program managed by Bluegrass Greensource. Their offices are a testament to their commitment to sustainable design and education. The building incorporates natural daylighting, good acoustics and the best possible indoor air quality to maximize student performance. Our teachers and staff were given an extensive and engaging tour, and learned a lot about ways to incorporate what RossTarrant was doing into their own schools.
After our time at Ross Tarrant, we headed to E.W. Brown Generating Station, located on the banks of Lake Herrington in Mercer County near Harrodsburg, KY. The E.W. Brown Plant is unique in that it showcases four generations of electricity-producing processes — a hydroelectric plant, three fossil-fueled generating units, seven combustion turbines and a universal solar facility.
The newest addition to the E.W. Brown Plant is the new 10-megawatt universal solar facility that stretches across 50 acres of the plant’s property. It uses more than 44,000 solar panels on fixed tilt rack systems that are positioned to optimize the available sunlight for producing energy. Commercial operation began in spring of 2016. The facility is projected to produce 19,000 megawatt-hours of energy annually, enough to provide energy for 1,500 homes based on a usage of 1,000 kilowatt hours per month.
While touring E.W. Brown, we were also able to visit the Dix Dam Generating Station. Originally Dix Dam was a principal source of power but now the hydro plant is used mainly when heavy rainfall results in above normal lake elevation. Today, with all three units running, the plant produces 24 megawatts of power.
We are excited to see how our teachers will bring their experience and knowledge back into the classroom, to educate students about Kentucky’s energy present and future. We’re so thankful for the support from the Department of Energy Development and Independence to make these field trip and professional development opportunities possible!
Kentucky Energy for Youth Teams are funded by the Department for Energy Development and Independence. Classroom education for this program is funded by Toyota.
Education Spotlight: Energy Education in Central Kentucky
By: Pattie Stivender,
Education Director
Bluegrass Greensource educators are energizing students across Central Kentucky as we start our annual classroom energy education program! Our educators work closely with teachers to provide lessons that align with Kentucky Academic Standards and are engaging for students. We continue to offer classroom activities that focus on Kentucky’s energy sources, including renewable energy, energy audits, and engaging classroom lessons. However, this year has some exciting changes!
Our educators are working with 12 Kentucky Energy for Youth (KEY) Teams to provide more intensive energy education at the elementary level. These teams will act as energy ambassadors for their schools and will have the opportunity to travel to Eastern Kentucky to learn about coal mining and its history. Students will then plan an energy assembly to share what they’ve learned with the entire fourth and fifth grades at their school.
Although we have targeted only 12 schools for the KEY program, we still have availability for just classroom energy education for other schools. If you are interested in learning more about this program, please contact Pattie Stivender (pattie@bggreensource.org) for more information.
What are teachers saying about our energy program?
“The energy program offered through Bluegrass Greensource has provided effective support to our science content. They add to the classroom additional information and resources to make learning memorable!”
– Britney Spicer, 4th grade Science Teacher at Westbridge Elementary School
How do our educators feel about this program?
“What I love most about our energy education program is the way that we engage the students in their learning. By getting the students up and moving, we focus on full-body learning and we make sure no student is left out. We give students unique challenges and aid them as they struggle to find the best solutions. Whether they are acting out the flow of energy all the way from the sun to our light bulbs or trying to find the best way to design a blade so that their wind turbine generates the most electricity, students are having fun and learning a lesson that they certainly won’t forget.”
-Danny Woolums, Bluegrass Greensource Environmental Educator
Kentucky Energy for Youth Teams are funded by the Department for Energy Development and Independence. Classroom education for this program is funded by Toyota.
Home Energy Workshop Recap
By: Mallory Johnson,
AmeriCorps VISTA
Our Home Energy Workshop on December 7th was a space for diverse members of our community to come together and learn hands-on energy saving tips to take into their own home this winter!
The technical portion of the workshop was led by Chris Woolery, with assistance from Rachel Norton, both of the How$martKY program, a residential energy efficiency initiative run by the Mountain Association for Community Economic Development (MACED).
Chris led the workshop, sharing his years of experience implementing energy efficiency measures in homes and apartments. After a brief presentation, participants moved through four stations throughout Embrace Church, our host site. These stations provided opportunities for attendees to receive hands-on experience with some of the techniques they can apply to their own home. They included: duct sealing; air sealing, insulating and sealing attic access points; and a station reviewing how to install the items in the energy efficiency kits that each participant received. Representatives from the Community Action Council and Kentucky Utilities were also on hand to discuss weatherization offerings they have through their “We Care” program.
Because of the hands-on aspect of the workshop, participants helped the good folks of Embrace Church weatherize their building. This will help increase comfort this winter and save the church money, which can then be redirected into their community outreach programs.
With help from our friends at the Central Kentucky Chapter of Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, we were able to survey residents on the North Side and East End neighborhoods and recruit 25 individuals to the workshop. The neighborhood surrounding Embrace Church includes many Spanish- and English-speaking families. Because of this, we decided to offer this workshop in both languages, which was a huge success due to the translation and interpretation help we received from Jennifer Hubbard-Sanchez of Kentucky State University.
At the end of the workshop, each attendee received a free energy efficiency starter kit, which we were able to provide through a generous mini-grant from the Blue Grass Community Foundation in partnership with the Kresge Foundation. Each kit included a power strip, four LED light bulbs, a swivel kitchen aerator and a bathroom aerator, a low-flow showerhead, as well as a caulk gun and two tubes of caulk.
We are so very thankful for all of our partnerships that helped this night to be as successful as it was. We also want to thank everyone again for all who were a part of making this night a success and most importantly providing our community with the resources they need to live more comfortably in their homes!
“Small energy efficiency improvements can make huge impacts on people’s lives,” said Chris Woolery. “They don’t just save energy and money, they create homes that are healthier and more comfortable. Most folks can do a lot of these improvements themselves, they just don’t know where to start. That’s why workshops like these are so important.”
Submit your 2017 Sustainable New Year Resolution!
Best Wishes for a Sustainable New Year!
By: Amy Sohner
Bluegrass Greensource
Executive Director
We have realized for a long time that many people make resolutions that they never can keep. I am guilty of that myself. As an example, I finally renewed my passport, a resolution I made five years ago!
Almost since our inception, Bluegrass Greensource has encouraged Central Kentuckians to think about New Year’s Resolutions differently. Instead of thinking only about personal goals, i.e losing weight, sleeping more, renewing your passport etc., we encourage resolutions that will have, collectively, a big impact on our local environment.
Our resolutions this year are to:
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Make my home more energy efficient
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Conserve water at my home or office
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Improve my recycling
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Ride my bike more
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Start or improve my compost practices
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Get outside more
In addition to offering an alternative to the regular resolutions, Bluegrass Greensource understands that committing to something publically increases its chances of success. By submitting your environmental goals to Bluegrass Greensource, you will be much more likely to actually accomplish them.
Since our mission is to empower the citizens to create a sustainable environment, we also want to know what you are striving to do and learn. By participating in the resolution program, we are alerted to what the needs are in our community, and can target programming to meet those needs.
And finally, as an incentive to participate in the resolution program, we have a drawing to award a $100 gift card! In my opinion, the part of the incentive that makes this great is that the gift card is tailored to what you resolve to do in 2017. If you choose to improve home composting, you can use your winnings to buy a home composting system. If you resolve to ride your bike more, you can use the money to buy a bike. We hope that the incentive will not only help you commit, but help break down any barriers that are preventing you from being successful.
Each year, we receive many resolutions, and I hope that we can empower you to make 2017 your greenest year yet!
Click here to share your 2017 resolution with us!
Green Living Lab: 2017 Workshops Announced!
From gardening to green cleaners at home, Green Living Lab offers something for everyone!
Green Living Lab is a new Saturday workshop series at Bluegrass Greensource, where staff present short, engaging workshops to help you build new skills and learn more about topics to live more sustainably. Green Living Lab continues in 2017 with three more workshop opportunities in January, February, and March!
All workshops are held at our office at 835 National Avenue.
Times and online registration are now available:
Sustainable Table
Saturday, January 21st
10 am – 12 pm
$15 registration
Reduce your environmental impact in the kitchen!
The January workshop will help you reduce your ecological footprint in the kitchen. Cooking as home with sustainable food taste better, is more nutritious, cheaper than eating out, brings friends and family together, and encourages healthy eating habits. Registration includes all food and materials for preparing and enjoying a sustainably minded meal! Click here to register for Sustainable Table.
Winter Seed Sowing
Saturday, February 25
12 pm – 2 pm
$20 registration
Start thinking about your 2017 garden plans!
The February workshop will introduce you to beneficial, native plants, and teach you a technique to cold stratify native seeds to get a head start on your spring and summer gardens. Each participant will receive a Monarch Waystation Seed Kit, and learn how to start the seeds that help to create, conserve and protect habitats of Monarchs and other pollinators. The $20 Registration includes all materials. Click here to register for Winter Seed Sowing.
Homemade Green Cleaners
Saturday, March 25
10 am – 12 pm
$15 registration
Keep your home clean and green!
The March workshop will introduce you to cleaning methods that are as safe and effective as commercial cleaners, without the environmental impacts. The $15 Registration includes all materials, including cleaners to take home. Click here to register for Homemade Green Cleaners.