The Sierra Club's Ready for 100 Campaign in partnership with RE-Volv and IOBY celebrated a Solar Energy Installation Ribbon Cutting at Garden Valley Neighborhood House (GVNH) on Friday, September 16th. Garden Valley Neighborhood House was established in 1918, on the East Side of Cleveland, Ohio to serve residents in need with programs that provide food, promote the value of nutrition, increase self-sufficiency, instill hope, provide community education services and promote advocacy. At the start of the relationship between the Sierra Club and GVNH, they were serving close to 20k families out of its food pantry and the energy burden to the center was overwhelming. Garden Valley Neighborhood House Director, Jan Ridgeway welcomed the support of the Sierra Club and a long-lasting partnership was formed.
In 2017 the Ready for 100 Campaign started its Community Dialogues to listen to the community, initiated by Cleveland Campaign Coordinator, Jocelyn Travis. These dialogues titled "Clean and Affordable Energy to Create More Livable Communities For All" were held simultaneously at the Garden Valley Neighborhood House and St. Paul United Church of Christ on Cleveland's West Side with the goal of creating sustainable action and change.
The outcome of these sessions included a vision for a clean energy future with a very tangible project of putting solar panels on the Garden Valley Neighborhood House, community beautification, resident engagement with the Sierra Club, clean energy jobs for youth, etc. In order to strengthen the structure of the center for the solar panels, an IOBY fundraiser was held raising nearly 12K from volunteers and supporters to repair the roof. The national non-profit organization Re-Volv along with the National Ready For 100 Campaign provided the funding needed for solar installation. Now today the Garden Valley Neighborhood House is serving over 30k families out of its food pantry and the energy burden is still there but is much lighter due to the solar panels on the center.
Chad Stephens as the current Sierra Club's Ready for 100 Campaign Coordinator will continue to work in partnership with Garden Valley Neighborhood House by providing community education on the benefits of solar to residents and continue to provide the support needed to realize the vision of the community.
