Here’s some great news for your Monday: thanks to the support of literally hundreds of donors, we raised almost all the money we needed to build not one, but two solar arrays for the Lovelock Elementary School in Lovelock, Nevada, at no cost to them.

For the last couple months, we’ve been raising money in hopes of being able to build a gift solar array for the Pershing County School District, which has had to lay off 6 of 40 teachers due to budget cuts. With almost enough raised, we jumped in a couple weeks ago and started work, hoping it would all come together. Everything did, and the project was completed and turned on last Thursday, July 2nd. There is a 22kW array for the bus facility, and a 50kW array for the main school building.

The completed bus array.

The completed school array.

Wakanwachi “Conch” Blindman inspecting the line.

Student Power! High school students help set boxes of panels….

…and finish up three hours (and 22kW!) later, just in time for a pizza picnic under the trees.

The conditions were grueling at times-at one point the crew measured the temperature on the roof and found it to be 150 degrees. Still, our rock star team got it done on time, and on budget, and the projects will now save the school district more than $$16,000 a year. That’s enough, in the words of Superintendant Dan Fox, to keep a teacher’s assistant in the classroom, which is exactly the sort of impact we were hoping to have.

This fall, when school is back in session, we’ll have a more formal dedication ceremony, where the whole student body and community can come together to learn more about renewable energy, and how the systems work.

Many thanks are in order, especially to County Commissioner Darin Bloyed, who helped shepherd this project along and donated valuable tools and materials to make it possible, and to Dan Fox, Dan Murphy, and the rest of the staff of the school district

Most special thanks to Sturgeons Hotel and Casino, which generously donated hotel rooms for our entire crew during our weeks in Lovelock.

And finally, thanks to all of you who donated to help make this gift possible–we literally couldn’t do it without you.