This Summer, the Cambridge Energy Alliance enjoyed the amazing work of eight undergraduate volunteers to reach out to Cambridge residents. The volunteers from Massachusetts Climate Summer trained for two day and canvassed 8 weekday evenings. They knocked on 2,700 doors and talked to over 500 Cambridge residents. We garnered 175 requests for free home energy audits, which are available to Cambridge residents living in buildings with 1 to 4 units. Volunteers traded 217 free CFLs (compact fluorescent lamps) for used incandescent bulbs, which will save those residents energy and money immediately.

If you did not have the pleasure of meeting one of our volunteers and you’re interested in receiving information on how to get an energy audit, please go the Cambridge Energy Alliance website, enter your contact info, and we’ll send you an email with all the information you’ll need to schedule a home energy audit.

The volunteers were real heroes. They were more often that not working in the rain. They rode their bicycles everywhere they went—including a volunteer stint in Salem when they finished at CEA—they stayed in church basements and other less-than-ideal housing for weeks on end, and were often very, very tired. We thank then for their amazing work and dedication to reducing the impact of climate change and global warming.

Our volunteers also collected answers to three survey questions so that CEA can better address the needs of Cambridge residents. Perhaps the most interesting is a graph that show that many people are already very conscious of saving energy and money through the various steps they’ve taken. But more needs to be done. Below is a graph that shows what some of the 512 Cambridge residents canvassed are already doing to save energy. Perhaps readers can gain ideas from the actions of their fellow Cantabridgians.

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