Celebrating Energy Independence in New Orleans

In the spirit of our patriotic summer holiday, the Alliance for Affordable Energy welcomed the Udall Legacy Bus Tour to New Orleans with a day full of public workshops and outreach to celebrate “Energy Independence Day” in America. The Alliance made good use of all 13 Udall volunteers: a few promoted the afternoon’s events in front of Whole Foods, others joined Andi Hoffman’s Greenlight New Orleans volunteering with his light bulb exchange program (to reduce the energy usage of many residents), some helped distribute recycled paint to residents moving back into their homes (quasi-energy related, right?), and everyone helped set up tables, chairs, signs and displays for the evening workshops.

Forest Bradley-Wright (Sustainable Rebuild Coordinator for the Alliance), kicked off the evening at 4:30pm with an update on new energy policies that apply to residents prior to leading a workshop on improving home energy efficiency. At the same time, many folks attended a biodiesel workshop headed by Topher Mira and Eileen Beall of the New Orleans Biodiesel Initiative. Towards the end of the evening, the Udall bus riders introduced themselves, and then Austin Travis of Whole Foods outlined the company’s greening initiatives as people snacked on the food they generously donated. The evening came to a close with a workshop overviewing solar technologies as a few of the Udallers helped cleanup. Overall, everyone felt like we accomplished a lot throughout the day, and that we helped out the community, learned a lot about technologies, policies, and successful (last-minute) event planning.

After working hard all day, we said goodbye to Forest and enjoyed a piece of delicious chocolate birthday cake (that the crew surprised me with), prior to going out to celebrate energy independence in true New Orleans style!

By: Bret Strogen