New Elite Petes in Lee County!

Our first Lee County graduating class!

Elite Petes® continue to spread throughout North Carolina! Our most recent graduating class is in Lee County, thanks to a grant from the EPA’s Office of Environmental Justice. The Elite Petes were trained how to run the Pete Street® Basic Energy Education and Hands On workshops. Their mad skills with rope caulk and outlet insulators are matched only by their enthusiasm for wanting to tell their neighbors how easy it is to save money (by saving energy) in their homes.

We look forward to having Kate Rumely, Patt Likes, Ruby Andrews, and Crystal Escobar helping their Lee County communities get more energy efficient! If you are interested in hosting a workshop in Sanford or want to become an Elite Pete yourself, please contact Patt Likes at Brick Capital Community Development Corporation, phone number (919) 775-2300 or at pattlks@live.com
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Other North Carolina Pete Street communities include the city of Asheville and Buncombe County, Towns of Chapel Hill & Carrboro, Halifax County, Greensboro, Siler City, Warren County, Wilson County and of course, Durham!

Turn out the lights!

Check out the fabulous video that Green Opportunities, our wonderful Pete Street® partner, in Asheville, NC made.

Clean Energy Durham’s Pete Street™ Launch in the News

Check out press coverage about Clean Energy Durham’s Pete Street™ Program, “a high-impact program that blends energy efficiency initiatives with neighbor-to-neighbor community development to help state residents reduce their energy consumption – and save money.”

-Tom

Wilson is on Pete Street™!

Just one week after participating in a community training session with Clean Energy Durham staff, the City of Wilson held a successful Chamber Expo where they unveiled the residential energy savings program, Pete Street^™, Where Neighbors Get Energy Savings^™.

Pete Street^™ is an innovative, neighbor-to-neighbor initiative where neighbors learn, do, teach, and track their energy savings through fun, hands-on workshops.  This program has been successfully running in Durham and Warren County in over 2,000 households and 40 neighborhoods, and has been re-branded as Pete Street^™ for communities outside Durham.

At the Chamber Expo, bags, fans/Frisbees, and t-shirts were emblazoned with the Pete Street^™ logo and contact information to raise awareness of this free, energy savings program and to jump-start registration for Basic Energy Education (BEE) Workshops, where people immediately learn simple, no-cost, low-cost ways to save energy.

“It was great! You could look down the mall and see yellow bags everywhere!” said Drenda Carpenter, the program coordinator for the City of Wilson.

The Pete Street^™ program in Wilson is a partnership between the City of Wilson, Martin Community Action (MCA) and Wilson Community Improvement Association. MCA will be training local volunteers to teach Hands-On Workshops (HOWs) where residents learn simple DIY techniques for saving energy around the home. MCA will also teach DIY techniques to households who have applied for weatherization assistance so they can begin saving energy right away while on the wait list for the weatherization program.

Referring to the successful Chamber Expo, Drenda Carpenter said, “I know that on the spot we booked 14 home energy audits, 1 business audit, and received information to call and schedule 6 BEE’s!!!”

Congratulations to Drenda and the City of Wilson and its partners for a great launch of their Pete Street^™ program.

Clean Energy Durham’s Program Launched in Wilson, NC!

The City of Wilson is now the third community outside Durham to launch a neighbor-to-neighbor energy-saving program using Clean Energy Durham’s training and materials.

Over a dozen City of Wilson and community representatives gathered on September 5^th for training from Clean Energy Durham in how to build and sustain a successful neighbor-to-neighbor energy-saving program using Clean Energy Durham’s new set of manuals and templates for community leaders and individual volunteers.

Clean Energy Durham has re-branded its program for beyond Durham as Pete Street™, with the tag line, Where Neighbors Get Energy Savings™.  “Pete” represents a guy or gal who has energy knowledge to share with neighbors.  The name allows for playful terms used in the program, which is based on a “learn, do, teach” approach.  Examples include Energy PrePete™ (learn), Energy Pete™ (do), Energy RePete™ (teach), and Elite Pete™ (take the advanced training).  Wilson is calling its program the Pete Street ™ Energy Savings Program for Wilson.

Drenda Carpenter, an Administrative Secretary for the City of Wilson, will play a key role in coordinating volunteers involved in the Wilson program.  She was clearly excited after the training session.  “I’m looking forward to putting this in action,” she said.  “The training was great!  There were fun and laughs plus learning.  A lot of work was put into this for us.”

Other training participants echoed Drenda’s enthusiasm.  Participants were asked for feedback after the training session, and the questions included “How confident do you feel in your ability to succeed in your role in this program?” and “What is your current level of enthusiasm for this program?”  On a scale of 1 to 5, the average of the responses was 4.6 on both questions.  They are ready and raring to go!