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After a five-year marketing campaign, Susan Auslander (89) and the photo voltaic committee on the Meadow Ridge Retirement Group in Connecticut satisfied their retirement group to erect 1,344 photo voltaic panels. These panels are anticipated to offset 607.2 metric tons of carbon annually – the environmental equal of taking 1,000 gasoline powered automobiles off the street per 12 months.
Described as an “energetic, convent-educated, white-haired Prius driver” in a recent New York Times profile, we caught up with Susan to speak about how different older adults can comply with her footsteps and her childhood encounter with Eleanor Roosevelt.
How did you find yourself main the cost to get your retirement group to start out utilizing solar energy?
I moved to Meadow Ridge in Redding, CT in 2017 and jumped proper in with each toes. I audited a pair committees earlier than I ended up chairing the constructing committee. That’s how I discovered that our electrical invoice was $1.5 million a 12 months. Now it is a huge campus, however I felt like that may be a large invoice that we may doubtlessly do one thing about and do one thing for the surroundings. However I assumed going at it from the monetary perspective made essentially the most sense for promoting it to possession and administration.
When administration modified to Benchmark High quality two years in the past, we had a brand new Govt Director who was supportive of the concept. It’s a $3 million undertaking that wunwell be fulld in 2024. However it’s going to find yourself costing us zero {dollars} since the financial savings over the lifetime of the undertaking will exceed the prices of growing and sustaining the undertaking.
How was activism part of your upbringing?
I’ve been a member of the League of Girls Voters for 50 years. My grandmother was the pinnacle of the Girls’s Christian Temperance Union in Columbia County, NY, and my mom organized the Democratic Girls’s Membership.
In 1950, my mom ran for (however sadly didn’t win) the New York State Meeting. Everybody who ran in New York State at the moment needed to get Eleanor Roosevelt’s blessing. We went to Val-Kill Cottage at Mrs. Roosevelt’s invitation for tea. I had gone with my three youthful sisters, and we had been below ache of loss of life from my mom to curtsey to Mrs. Roosevelt, who remarked “what a captivating anachronism.”
What recommendation do you’ve gotten for different older adults who wish to make their retirement houses extra eco-friendly?
First, it’s important to begin a committee. Then discuss to the administration and discover out what the information are – what does your utility invoice seem like? Then discuss to your state legislators – they’ll advise you as to what grants and tax incentives can be found on the state and federal ranges.
You need to do it as a three way partnership. It will probably’t be one individual crying within the wilderness. The place there’s a will, there’s a means!
What does Growing old with Angle imply to you?
I assume it means to stay curious, to study and to persevere. I had a supervisor who used to say to me “God, you’re a driver” in different phrases he needed me to again off. However I often didn’t. We accomplished no matter activity or problem was earlier than us.
YOUR TURN:
Have you ever been lively in your group and made a distinction? Share your expertise within the feedback!
Pam Hugi is Senior Planet’s Group and Advocacy Supervisor. Based mostly in Brooklyn, she is a contributing author for this website.
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