A big thanks to over 100 friends and family members who sponsored me for the 2012 San Francisco Bay Area Solarthon! Thanks to your help, I was the top individual fundraiser for the third year in a row and broke my own record at a fab $4,800! Excuse all the exclamation marks, but it’s exciting to me.

Even more important than being the top fundraiser is what we accomplished that day, thanks to YOU:

• We installed 13 solar electric systems (a total of 262 solar panels) for low-income families.
• Over their 30-year life span, the 13 solar systems will save more than $450,000 for these families.
• In the same time period, the systems will prevent over 1,500 tons of carbon emissions.
• This is equivalent to taking over 300 cars off the road for one year!

I was part of the Women’s Build, which installed a mere 9 panels for our super-energy-efficient homeowner, Lilli, pictured here in the green shirt (and yes, there is a man in the photo — one of the volunteer team leads). Luckily, we didn’t have to turn her power off for long to install the system, because as Lilli informed us, she can’t live for very long without Facebook. Here’s a rundown of what we accomplished with just these 9 panels:

• Kilowatts installed: 1.785
• Lifetime energy savings to the family: $16,674
• Tons of carbon emissions prevented: 56
• Equivalent number of trees planted: 1,323
• Equivalent number of cars taken off the road for one year: 11

It was hot work in sunny San Jose, but we did it a lot more quickly than we could have planted 1,323 trees!

For those of you who donated early (thanks!) and therefore missed my fundraising videos, you can view them here. I just wrote and performed. Thanks to Rafael for producing, directing, creating artwork, editing, and uploading!

More photos follow, and you can see even more at the GRID Picasa album. Thanks again for your help and support!