Metro CERT 2024 Annual Event Recap

On May 2nd, 2024, over 250 people joined the Metro CERT team on Lake Street in South Minneapolis, in the Macmillan Center at Abbott Northwestern, for our 17th annual event. The hospital built the space in 2023 in response to the need for additional community space along Lake Street following the civil unrest in 2020 after the murder of George Floyd. 

We opened the night with the annual “Metro CERT Year in Review” that highlighted accomplishments from our work over the past year, including the first-in-the-nation winter electric vehicle “ride and drive”, funding 7 seed grant projects [PDF], and the newly relaunched Community Energy Ambassador program, now with over 900 participants across Minnesota.

The event’s main ticket however was focused on two panels answering community questions around equitable clean energy financing and diversifying the clean energy workforce. Both conversations were captured by our graphic notetaking friends at TwoLine Studios – see below for the beautifully drawn notes with images and words representing the conversations visually.

A number of our partners hosted resources tables to connect attendees to additional resources for identifying, planning, and implementing community-based clean energy projects: Center for Energy and Environment, Division of Energy Resources at the MN Department of Commerce, Minnesota State Energy Center of Excellence, Cooperative Energy Futures, and of course, CERTs! We are so grateful to have a rich array of organizations to support the continued transition to clean energy here in the Metro area.

Following the program there was networking and a selection of delicious cuisines from the Midtown Global Market representing many cultures. And in a surprise return from last year – Taste of Scandinavia’s excellent Bailey’s Irish Cream torte and Scandinavian Strawberry torte.

It was such an informative, engaging and fun night. Thanks to all the conversation participants and all the attendees. We were thrilled to see such a large, diverse collection of people coming together to move clean energy forward, as a more inclusive and accessible system.