Joy Loving of Grottoes and Sandy Greene of Mount Sidney have been involved in the recent valley Solarize programs. They are available to present on their experiences expanding solar power in Rockingham and Augusta Counties.
Joy Loving
Under the sponsorship of the Climate Action Alliance of the Valley, Joy Loving led Solarize Harrisonburg in 2014 and is hoping for a Round Two. Joy is a native Virginian who has lived in Virginia most of her life. She is mother of three and grandmother of three. A graduate of Virginia Tech, most of her career was as a policy and program analyst with the Social Security Administration and as a computer systems analyst for the National Cemetery System of the Department of Veterans Affairs. In 1994, she moved with her husband from Arlington to her current residence outside Grottoes in Rockingham County. Retiring from her last job with R R Donnelley in 2003, she has kept busy with gardening, traveling, reading, and volunteering.
In early Fall 2012, Joy and her husband installed a ground-mounted solar system that provides all (and more) of her household’s electricity needs. Together with Sandy Greene, or individually, she will present a report on Solarize Harrisonburg and make a case that the time has come for increasing our solar footprint in the Shenandoah Valley.
Sandy Greene
Sandy Greene volunteered to coordinate the Solarize Augusta Project as the intersection of her interests and skills. She has a BS in Biology and MEd in Education (from JMU) and is a lifelong Virginian who has two kids and three grandkids. Sandy ran a fresh-cut herb business at her farm and worked at her husband’s pediatric dentistry office, at The Wildlife Center of Virginia and at Headwaters Soil and Water Conservation District. Active with Virginia Master Naturalists, she has worked in Conservation Education for 30 years in Augusta County, winning several national awards for her programs and field trips for children.
Whether the topic is clean water, forests or soil conservation, energy use is always a part of the human equation, particularly the need for renewable energy sources. Sandy walks her talk, as she and her husband installed enough solar photovoltaic panels in 2012 on their barn roof to equal the electricity they use in a year – with enough to charge their electric hybrid car and electric riding mower too.
As Augusta, Staunton and Waynesboro homeowners see just how easy and affordable it is to go solar through the Solarize project, Sandy hopes that it will help to normalize the use of solar power, provide an alternative to some of our fossil fuel needs, and help to pave the way for a sustainable new blend of energy sources. She will elaborate on this during her presentation, together with Joy or separately.
Contact information:
Joy Loving: jal_1998[at]yahoo.com Sandy Greene: greenes104[at]aol.com
Climate Action Alliance of the Valley 