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I serve as the pastor of St. Christopher's Episcopal Church in Linthicum, Maryland. Our motto says it all: "The little church with the big heart."

Every day, I see how much people power goes into paying our electric bill. Countless volunteer hours and too much energy are spent on fundraising to pay for the electricity that keeps our facilities running.

Reducing what our church spends on energy can free people up to do what they have a passion for in their hearts. For most of my congregation, that means meeting the needs of our community. Our generosity of spirit is channeled through our ministries. Last week, Rev. Ellison met with other leaders of the Community Power Project at New York Avenue Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C.

We joined the Community Power Project to shrink our monthly electricity costs. Bringing cleaner energy to our buildings is an added benefit. But our excitement about this project stems from the promise it holds to strengthen our ministries and help us touch more lives.

More than 100 D.C.- and Maryland-based community organizations are involved in this project. Interested in learning how your organization can become involved?

Contact Lead Organizer Sam Witherbee at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or 202.255.2183.

Our organization started around a big, bold idea: Everyday people in everyday communities are the key to unlocking a new clean energy economy.

In January 2009, while advocates of the clean energy economy focused on wooing the political elite in the halls of Congress, a small group of young innovators set out to test an alternate, bottom-up vision of transformation.

We felt that community leadership and grassroots groups were being overlooked in this effort. Too often, the ability of the grassroots to make change was measured only in their ability to lobby government to make policy change. We believed these groups had a different, more critical tool in the struggle toward a strong clean energy economy – their own collective power as engaged consumers.

Brett Wiley leads Groundswell's Strong Homes Program

Three years ago in the midst of the recession, a group of young people from across the country came to Washington, D.C., to dig into the city and discover where they could seed some change.  

A city synonymous with traditional power, our nation’s capital is also becoming known for having the highest unemployment and economic inequality rates in the country. 

The group of young people talked with community members from diverse backgrounds. Through those conversations and research, they identified a way in which to address the disparities they witnessed: tapping into the clean energy market – specifically, weatherization work. Using the power of community purchasing, we create investment in local businesses 

Soon, they realized that training more people in weatherization work wasn’t the greatest need. They concluded that creating job opportunities for people with training who were ready to work was where they could make the biggest difference.