Power Building Summit

On March 5, we came together with organizers, activists, and changemakers from across the city to share our visionary goals for 2025 and beyond. Three Core members worked together on our statement, which consisted of who we are, what we envision, and what support we are asking from other organizations in the coalition. This is the full statement that was delivered by Jeuji on our behalf that day.

This statement was jointly written by 3 core members of RENEW, Deb Powers, Kwaku Asare, and me.

RENEW is an energy justice organization formed in 2017 and relaunched post-pandemic. Over the past couple years we have participated in numerous community events alongside many of you,, and thanks to Kwaku, we’ve added more than 200 names to our contact list. This year,  we will focus on putting that contact list to good use as we build capacity to literally build power IN the community by building power FOR the community. 

We are working to bring community-owned solar projects to Worcester, projects that prioritize community benefits over shareholder profits. These will require community members to take on specific roles to help plan and oversee these projects. We’ve recently been awarded a capacity building grant that will allow us to compensate community members who dive in to do the groundwork of building power for the people.

• We face urgent fights on many fronts, and members of RENEW are joined in those fights. But our work focuses not on the immediate but on long term system change.
• We must fight the bad AND also build alternatives to systems that organize us into safe/ not safe; haves/ have-nots; those who decide & those who suffer decisions made by others.
• As part of a regional energy cooperative, RENEW has the resources we need to build solar arrays that are decided on, owned by, and that prioritize benefits to community residents. 
• We need to find rooftops & parking lots in new developments that we can lease for shared solar arrays and build a core local team that can oversee these projects 

We are asking for your support in three important ways. 

First, please help publicize and attend our upcoming events so that we can reach as many interested people as possible. 

Second, invite us to present our work to your organization to help build a shared understanding of the principles of energy democracy, and how community-owned solar projects can benefit our city.

 And finally, we ask you to join with us in demanding clauses in all future Community Benefit Agreements that support a just transition to clean, renewable energy, with a focus on community owned infrastructure.

Thank you.