The Sharing the Power Foundation Announces 2023 Grant Award Winners

The winners represent a wide range of organizations committed to environmental justice, renewable energy and workforce development in urban communities and rural areas transitioning from carbon to clean energy.

WASHINGTON, Jan. 15, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The Sharing the Power Foundation (www.sharingthepower.org) has announced its 2023 Grant Award Winners. The foundation was established in 2021 to offer financial assistance to organizations that serve historically underserved urban and rural communities through programs that support their immediate needs and produce opportunities to participate meaningfully in the benefits of the clean energy economy. The foundation's mission is focused primarily on: environmental health and justice, access to affordable clean energy, and creating and supporting opportunities to work in the clean energy sector.

"The Sharing the Power Foundation fills an important need in our community by advancing environmental justice and an inclusive clean energy future. We celebrate the efforts of the 2023 Awardees who offer resources to a segment of historically marginalized, low-income, primarily minority and rural populations that have disproportionally borne the health and economic effects of pollution and inadequate access to healthy food and other essentials," said Gilbert Campbell, foundation board chairman and CEO of Volt Energy Utility.

The 2023 Sharing the Power Grant Awardees

Coalfield Development

Focusing on the central Appalachia region, the organization creates opportunities to grow and prosper through four core capabilities:  designing and scaling new programs in emerging sustainable energy sectors; incubating and investing in well-paying employment social enterprises; and facilitating personal, professional, and academic growth for people facing barriers to employment.

The Bullard Center for Environmental and Climate Justice

Located at Historically Black College and University (HBCU) Texas Southern University, the nationally-recognized organization founded by Robert D. Bullard, Ph.D., the "father of environmental justice," addresses, "longstanding issues of systemic inequality and structural racism" that disproportionally affect people of color. The center has focused much of its efforts towards Black communities located in 19 states and the District of Columbia where historic environmental hazards and conditions persist.

Virginia Interfaith Power & Light

Virginia Interfaith Power & Light (VAIPL) is the state affiliate of a national organization, Interfaith Power & Light, which is dedicated to bringing together all faith communities to mobilize a religious response to climate change through energy conservation, energy efficiency, and renewable energy. 

Building Bridges Across the River

Among the community-impact organization's variety of projects, is the Building Bridges Farms. The collaborative urban agricultural network aims to increase healthy food access, educational resources, and workforce development opportunities to residents of east of the Anacostia River in Washington, DC.

Hispanic Federation

As a national organization, Hispanic Federation supports clean air and water, sustainable energy practices, the protection of public lands and national monuments, and access to these resources. HF believes all are of critical importance to the Hispanic community.

Prairie Rivers Network

The Illinois-based organization works to protect rural rivers from pollution and supports and practices policies that restore land along and between rivers and promotes biodiversity. It also supports equitable access to a safe environment, and workforce training programs focusing on expanding opportunities for historically coal dependent and marginalized communities to participate in the clean energy economy.

Sankofa Orchard Community Garden

The Sankofa Community Orchard is a five-acre green space dedicated to food justice and climate resiliency consisting of over 80 fruit trees in the southside of Richmond, Virginia.

West Atlanta Watershed Alliance

Its mission is to improve the quality of life within the West Atlanta Watershed by protecting, preserving and restoring the community's natural resources. WAWA represents African-American neighborhoods in Northwest and Southwest Atlanta.

Dreaming Out Loud

Dreaming Out Loud creates economic opportunities for the Washington, DC metro region's marginalized communities. DOL is rebuilding urban, community-based food systems through cooperative social enterprise.

Kinfolk Community, Inc.

Kinfolk is a multi-dimensional outreach program based in Richmond, VA with an Urban Conservation Corp consisting of young adults responsible for litter control and transforming urban vacant areas to gardens and recreational green spaces.

Hispanic Access Foundation

The national foundation connects Latino communities to opportunities that offer them reliable and relevant resources, workforce development, civic engagement and environmental stewardship. Hispanic Access has developed extensive, trust-based community networks, including those in communities that are the hardest to reach.

Bridging the Gap in Virginia

The mission of the organization is to empower formerly incarcerated persons, veterans, at-risk youth, those with substance use disorders and those suffering from homelessness. Bridging the Gap helps clients overcome barriers that hinder transitioning into mainstream society following military duty, recovery and/or incarceration. The organizations support workforce training for opportunities in the renewable energy sector.

Sharing the Power Foundation is funded primarily through the Volt Energy Utility Environmental Justice Power Purchase Agreement (EJPPA), a financial instrument used to develop utility-scale solar projects. The foundation provides corporate and development partners opportunities to fund environmental justice programs and organizations of their choice or through the guidance and recommendation of the foundation. Volt Energy Utility and its corporate partners agree on a percentage of revenue produced by their solar projects, through the EJPPA, that will be forwarded to the Sharing the Power Foundation. Microsoft was the first company to join with Volt to dedicate to the foundation a portion of revenue produced through the EJPPA.

Read More About Sharing the Power Foundation:

For more information, please visit www.sharingthepowerfoundation.org.

About Volt Energy Utility, LLC:

Volt Energy Utility, LLC (www.voltenergyutility.com), an African-American owned utility-scale solar development firm, created the concept of establishing the foundation through its unique Environmental Justice Power Purchase Agreement™ (EJPPA™). Volt created a process through which the basic tool used to finance major utility – scale solar projects — the PPA — can produce a funding stream to support environmental justice and clean energy causes that may be located in areas beyond the location of the projects.

Media Contact:
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SOURCE Volt Energy Utility, LLC