Cares Charitable Contribution Q1 2021
Sunco Lighting regularly donates to worthy charity organizations to promote green initiatives at home and abroad. We also care about the local community. This month, we supported two local charities to fight the growing issue of homelessness in Los Angeles County.
The United Nations lists 17 Sustainable Development Goals they are trying to improve, including: affordable and clean energy, climate action, clean water and sanitation, life below water, life on land, and reduced inequalities. Those admirable goals are something we embrace, too, in our Sunco Cares initiative and our Mission Statement.
The charities Sunco Lighting donated to during Q1 2021:
- Combat energy poverty worldwide
- Promote eco-consciousness worldwide through tree planting
- Promote eco-consciousness locally by reverting urban waterways to a more natural state
- Help local families and individuals experiencing homelessness
Solar Electric Light Fund (SELF)
Powering a brighter 21st century
Mission: SELF design and implements solar projects for disadvantaged communities around the world to advance their levels of healthcare, education, water and food security, and economic development.
Per the SELF website, close to 1 billion people do not have access to electricity. Their solution is to implement and design solar projects for disadvantaged communities worldwide. Although the SELF founders originally focused on solar for homes in countries in Asia. They now focus on the community, rather than the individual, to provide resources like improved healthcare, education, and food security for community empowerment.
One such project was in Haiti where less than 25% of the rural population has access to reliable electricity. SELF created solar hybrid micro-grids to provide renewable energy to people who had not yet received power from the national grid due to the rugged conditions where they lived. Hybrid micro-grids combine solar power and diesel generators. This project was initially begun before the devastating 2010 earthquake and Hurricane Matthew (a category 5 hurricane) struck the country. Nearly 60% of the solar installed had to be replaced after these disasters. SELF returned to Haiti to both rebuild and expand the micro-grid by the end of 2019.
Solar Electric Light Fund also finances additional projects to create solar-powered water pumps in West Africa to deliver clean drinking water. Access to clean water can reduce diseases and the need for women and girls to walk miles each day to collect water. Through a generous grant from The Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), Solar energy is now used to pump water from aquifers to reservoirs in the Kalalé District of Benin in West Africa. The low tech pump stations access the water in the reservoir via gravity.
When people have access to clean water it improves not only their health, by avoiding waterborne illnesses, but also frees up their time for other things.
Help deliver solar solutions to people in need.
If you want to learn more on the subject of clean energy, check out the UN’s PDF on why affordable and clean energy matters.
