Grantee Visit: Concerned Citizens of Cook County and Georgia Interfaith Power & Light

Staff and trustees from The R. Howard Dobbs, Jr. Foundation, the Ray C. Anderson Foundation, and the Reilly Family Fund recently visited Concerned Citizens of Cook County, a Drawdown Georgia (DDGA) Climate Solutions & Equity Grantee that is working with co-grantee, Georgia Interfaith Power & Light in Adel, Georgia. They're providing education about the energy landscape in South Georgia, implementing clean energy and energy-efficient alternatives, and providing resources and technical assistance so that individuals and congregations can access upgrades and services to reduce energy burdens.

The site visit was held on Tuesday, September 30th at St. James AME Church, one of three churches selected to benefit from the DDGA grant. The funders also visited Bethel Baptist Church and Piney Grove Missionary Baptist Church.

Funding team members included Valerie Bennett, communications director, and Lori Blank, grants and operations director, from the Ray C. Anderson Foundation; Jamie Reilly, trustee, Reilly Family Fund; and Jason Terrell, president of the R. Howard Dobbs, Jr. Foundation.

Grantee team members included: Dr. Treva Gear, executive director of Concerned Citizens of Cook County (4C); Rev. Tim Lewis, Pastor at St. James AME; Celestine Hayes, Adel City Councilwoman and member of Bethel Baptist Church; Deacon Ulysses Gear, Piney Grove Missionary Baptist Church; and Deacon Earnest McCallister, Bethel Baptist Church, as well as several other members of 4C.

Representing GIPL were: Codi Norred, executive director; Marqus Cole, organizing director; and Ty Grier, South Georgia organizer. 

Persistent Inequities Prevail in Adel

“Money doesn’t flow south of Macon,” was a quote we heard most often on our visit to Adel. South Georgia communities are really suffering. FEMA funds have still not reached many who were impacted by Hurricane Helene, and Adel, in particular, seems to have been left behind. "After Hurricane Helene, people started realizing and verbalizing 'nobody's coming.'" said Treva Gear. "The Drawdown Georgia grant has seemed almost too good to be true."

Polluting industries - including aluminum anodizing, propane tank refurbishing, bitcoin mining, and biomass pellet processing - have operated or continue to operate within steps of the homes and churches in disinvested neighborhoods. It's a modern day "tale of two cities." One side of Adel suffers from extreme environmental injustices and public health effects, while the rest of the city's population seems unaware. The potential for growth and jobs have long incentivized more dirty industries for economic gains, so long as the undesirable effects are only felt on the "other side of the railroad tracks."

Eight months of power bill records were recently "lost" when a cryptocurrency company fled town with over a million dollars in debt. When the City of Adel's power bills were finally distributed, rates were inconsistent and the brunt of big industry's energy impact was factored more heavily into the bills of the town's most poverty-stricken residents. 

4C and GIPL were originally awarded their grant to work through the faith community in disinvested parts of Adel and Cook County to use funds secured from the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), to ground their work in three churches that were identified as trusted community based partners. All three churches have the ability to function as community centers for education now, with potential to become resilience centers in the future.

Planning a Brighter Future Together

The GIPL team worked with leaders in three historically marginalized congregations in energy-burdened communities. Congregation leaders met with the GIPL team multiple times to establish trust and to fully understand the options and benefits. They really had to be convinced that there wasn't a "catch." They agreed to free energy audits, and they carefully studied the results with GIPL and their local contractors, identifying the upgrades that would deliver the most energy savings and thermal comfort for each congregation's unique needs.

Because of GIPL's existing programs and partnerships, there was no charge to the congregations for their energy audits and scheduled upgrades. GIPL was able to leverage other grants to complement the DDGA grant. Based on data in the U.S. Department of Energy's LEAD Tool, the energy burden (average percentage of income residents spend on energy costs) in the targeted communities of Adel exceeds 18%. GIPL has been able to leverage funding, discounts and rebates to allow them to create work plans that will allow each congregation to complete 70% of the recommended upgrades identified in their energy audits, and they can expect to see automatic savings within 1-2 months of project completion.

Each church is "saving" a minimum investment of $10,000 that they couldn't have afforded for their energy efficiency projects, since GIPL has managed to cover the costs. Otherwise, their only option would have been diverting money from crucial local missions if they had tried to make upgrades.

Now, with no monetary investment, they are expected to see savings of 10-15% on energy bills once the repairs are complete. For the congregations, that translates directly into local missions; more food they can serve to the hungry, more money they can put into youth programs, and more help they can provide to neighbors who live in the communities surrounding them.

For the pastors and deacons, these upgrades will provide a welcome relief on Sunday mornings and prior to other times of worship and fellowship. Currently, someone has to go to each church at least two hours in advance to turn on the tired and inefficient window air conditioning units in the cooling season or electric space heaters in the heating season; usually just enough to make the sanctuaries and fellowship halls "relatively comfortable and bearable."

Repairing The Way to a Brighter Future

St. James AME, where our meeting and tour started, will receive new thermostats, blown in insulation in the roof cavity and surrounding other main areas for worship and gathering, and electrical wiring upgrades, energy efficient lighting, HVAC mini splits, and occupancy sensors for restrooms. That particular church is 139 years old.

Piney Grove Baptist Church has already completed part of their lighting retrofit in the sanctuary, and they will also receive blown in insulation in the roof above the sanctuary and other key areas. They will also receive modern thermostats.

Bethel Missionary Baptist Church will receive modern thermostats, a new electrical panel and updated wiring, occupancy sensors for lights, lighting upgrades and blown in insulation.

GIPL hopes to have all of the upgrades completed by the end of the year, and the congregations are hopeful that they will be able to have their traditional community Thanksgiving and Christmas meals in comfort.

Acheiving Resilience

Looking to the future, GIPL says they consider these to be long-term partnerships and pilots for scaling similar projects in other parts of South Georgia. They are already engaging each congregation in talks to discuss what it would take to make each church a resiliency center, with clean, off-grid power options like solar and battery storage, to provide places where neighbors can go when they experience extreme weather events and power outages like Hurricane Helene dealt to the area just over a year ago.

Until then, Dr. Gear and her 4C team plan to make plenty more "good trouble" and advocate for their friends and neighbors.

4C's grant was funded by a cohort of funders that included the Atticus Fund, Ghanta Family Foundation, The Ray C. Anderson Foundation, Reilly Family Fund, Tull Charitable Foundation, and The Wilbur & Hilda Glenn Family Foundation.

Click below to watch "Abandoned: Greed, Neglect and Environmental Injustice in Adel" a documentary created by Georgia Conservation Voters Education Fund.