RE-fest is a celebration of green living and clean energy focused on educating the community about the positive impact individual actions can have on the environment. Last year’s celebration was Saturday, September 20th from 11am–4pm at the Mower County Fairgrounds in Austin, MN.
The energy focus of the event is primarily efficiency and conservation, with renewables being high on the list. Participants have the opportunity to hear locally, regionally, and nationally renowned speakers share their knowledge of energy and resource conservation as well as engage with solar, wind and geothermal vendors promoting their respective technologies.
The Austin High School Go Green Club’s annual electronics recycling and document destruction service is also available to help the club raise funds for sustainability projects, such as last year’s solar installation project, that the club puts on for the school. Similarly, the “RE-fest Ride” is a multi-level bike ride that raises funds for the Riverland Community College Wind Turbine program.
RE-fest is put on through a collaborative effort by Austin Utilities, J.C. Hormel Nature Center, and Riverland Community College, with support from Austin Utilities and Southern Minnesota Municipal Power Agency (SMMPA). A Southeast CERT Seed Grant helped fund a small portion of the labor costs for this year’s event. Additionally, this year they partnered up with two additional events to draw in more people, notes Dave Thompson, Residential Account Representative with Austin Utilities, who has been helping RE-fest since its inception in 2007.
“The ability to host RE-fest with the North Central Scottish Highland Cattle and the Recycling event on the Mower County Fairgrounds was both unique and successful in that we were able to have all three things in such close proximity,” says Thompson. “I believe this was successful because we promoted the event tying the three things together and of course when people arrived, they quickly understood that other events were happening.”
To learn more about RE-Fest, visit: http://www.refest.org
Project Snapshot:
- Location: Austin, MN
- Activity: Outreach
- Technology: Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy
- Total cost: $14,500
- SE CERT Seed Grant: $500
- People Involved & Reached: 18,000
Want to learn how your community can get a CERTs Seed Grant to advance your work? Applications for the next round of grants are available and due October 26th. To get started, visit the Seed Grant page and see other awarded projects from past years.
