6/4/2010
Hanging In There!
Thanks to an amazing community of supporters who contributed $2,500 in one month, we reached our fundraising goal at the end of May and have been able to purchase vehicle and organizational insurance for another year of operation! We are filled with gratitude at the generosity of our friends and neighbors, and are extremely excited and relieved to be able to continue our operations with the SolTrekker renewable energy bus for now. We will do our best to keep it rolling into the future!
In other good financial news, we made our first dollar of true operating profit on the Solar Waffle Works in April and the trend held through May, with June looking strong as well. While this little vocational training operation might not be creating any millionaires (or even thousandaires) it is beginning to reach a self-sustaining level on the financial front. The Portland Public Schools' side of the SWW was a success as well, with several students using the training as a springboard to community college or their first jobs! Thanks again for all of your support!
4/21/2010
SolTrekker Donations Down
While 2010 has been a good year for our programs, it's been a tough year for giving. Here at SolTrekker, both our individual donations and our grant awards are down dramatically since the end of 2009. In order to avoid the difficult decision of selling equipment assets to pay expenses, we are beginning a fundraiser drive to seek an average $10 donation from each of our contacts, which, if we succeed, will allow us another full year of operation without selling any of the assets we've worked so hard to build. If you are able to spare $10 or $20 and you believe in our programs, please make a donation today.
Checks can be made payable to SolTrekker and sent to 1912 NE Killingsworth Street, Portland, OR, or online donations can be made by clicking the button on the right. Thanks very much for your support.
3/31/2010
Oregon Tradeswomen and a New Awning
We were excited to work with Oregon Tradeswomen Inc. recently, a great local business that works to promote the success of women in trades. The Solar Waffle Works has been in need of a permanent awning for some time, especially given the nature of Oregon weather, and OTI provided us with free labor to build one. It's a part of their apprenticeship program that trades local non-profits free labor for the opportunity to train the women in their programs. Our thanks to OTI for the awning!
1/10/2010
Why Did the Waffle Cart Cross the Road?
In an effort to reduce rent and increase visibility, the Solar Waffle Works has moved across the street in Northeast Portland, joining a burgeoning new cart community known as Area 23. The new address is 2314 NE Alberta Street. If you're ever in the neighborhood, come on by and say hello!
12/21/2009
Mt. Scott Academy
Happy Winter Solstice! We are looking forward to the slow return of longer days and more sun, and taking time to reflect on 2009, which has been one eventful year at SolTrekker. This year was our first fill year after finishing the renewable energy bus retrofit in 2008, and we brought free environmental and renewable energy education to over 600 students in the Portland area.
In addition, we took on a new partnership project, the Solar Waffle Works student-run business, which is hanging in there during the slow winter after a great start in the fall. We are looking forward to better business as the weather improves and can't say how much we appreciate all the community support in making this project successful. Special thanks to the Spirit Mountain Community Fund, Felix Kersting and Corinne Thomas-Kersting, Allison Hintzmann, the awesome CTP para-educators Adam and Tamarind and all the volunteers who helped out.
We finished up the year with presentations and tours to the student body of Mt. Scott High School last week (Mt. Scott students pictured). They had some great, challenging questions regarding sustainability and climate change and we're excited to continue the conversation with them and their peers in other schools in 2010.
Looking forward, we are excited as plans come together for our 2010 Solar Generator Project. With this project, we will bring plans and materials for mobile solar generators to middle school and high school science classrooms, where the students will learn how to put them together as well as the science behind their function. The generators, capable of powering a small office, will be left with the classrooms.
We can especially use your support at the end of the year, so please click here to make a tax-deductible donation.
Thanks for your support and have a wonderful holiday season!
10/27/2009
What an amazing opening day for the Solar Waffle Works! We were all a little nervous after the previous day's downpour, but we awoke on Saturday to blue skies and one of the most amazing, sunny fall days Portland has seen so far -- perfect for solar! The turnout was great and people were wonderful, patiently waiting in the long line for fresh-baked waffles. Several news stations turned up to cover the event and it was truly a magical moment when local supergroup TapWater came down the block playing samba drums, leading a crowd of onlookers to our cart lot and then playing a full set.
The CTP students stepped up and really did a great job, whether that meant working the cash register, food prep or doing some awesome (and hilarious) advertising by wearing the dancing waffle costume. Thanks for being brave and getting out there.
We can't say "thank you" enough to all the people who helped make this happen, but to those who have helped us along the way, we are extremely grateful.
There is still quite a bit of work to do before this is a well-oiled solar machine, but we have a great start and are looking forward to more fun days. We are currently seeking local Portlanders to help volunteer for a shift or two in the kitchen, so please contact us if that seems appealing. And, as always, donations are extremely appreciated, especially at this start-up time when we have many bills and not a huge amount of income just yet.
10/15/2009
The Solar Waffle Works grand opening will take place in one week, on Saturday, October 24 from 10am to 4pm. The cart is located at NE Alberta Street and 23rd Street in Portland, OR. There will be free samples, live music from TapWater and other great local musicians, and yes, maybe even a dancing waffle or two.
It's very cool that our opening coincides with the latest action day at www.350.org and to participate, we'll be shooting to bring in 350 people and send in a photo of 350 spelled out in fudge on waffles, to be displayed on the big screen at Times Square in New York!
So come by for tasty goodness and this fleeting shot at fame. Hope to see all you Portlanders there!
10/7/2009
Oh, the day has finally arrived! The Solar Waffle Works cart is constructed and positioned at it's final destination on NE Alberta Street and 23rd in Portland. Many, many thanks to all those who helped out getting us to this point. The students are excited, the CTP staff is excited and we're all excited. Now it's time to make some good food! After a year of planning and several months of building, this project is ready to launch! Our schedule is to quietly open the week of October 12 and work out the kinks, with a grand opening scheduled for October 24. Tell your friends!
9/18/2009
The Muddy Boot Organic Festival in Southeast Portland was a blast and we made a lot of new friends and hopefully brought some additional renewable energy education to an already very well educated crowd. Now we start putting our focus into the upcoming school year and our Alternative Field Trip program, scheduled to begin in November 2009.
8/14/2009
SolTrekker as an organization continues to grow and we've recently added two new board members, both dynamic individuals who have already brought so much to the organization.
SaraHope Smith is an Energy Analyst and Resource Conservation Manager for the Oregon Department of Energy and has been involved in making biodiesel more accessible to the public since 2000. She began with the Berkeley Biodiesel Collective; co-founded BioFuel Oasis, one of the first B100 dedicated biodiesel stations in the country, and was a founding member of the Biodiesel Council of California. She has been a principal organizer for the Sustainable Biodiesel Summit for the past 4 yrs.
Dave Bailey will be serving as Treasurer and brings a great deal of financial management and IT experience. He is an avid cyclist and operates his own IT consulting company. He lives in Northeast Portland with his wife Amanda and their communicative dogs Steve "the chupacabra" and Zak.
Welcome aboard to Dave and SaraHope. We're glad to have you!
7/20/2009
We're very excited to announce two bits of news. The first is that the Solar Cafe project has been renamed the Solar Waffle Works, and this one is final because the logos are going to press!
The bigger news is that we've received our first grant as a 501(c)3 non-profit! The Spirit Mountain Community Fund has generously approved our request for participation in the Solar Waffle Works, giving a $5,000 grant to help us make this a reality. It's really brought a great energy to the office, knowing that other community partners see the potential that we do, and we can't do enough to express our gratitude. A big thank you to Spirit Mountain and all those who are helping out.
6/16/2009
We continue to make progress on the Solar Cafe and are still projecting a grand opening in September 2009. But, in the meantime, we've been keeping ourselves pretty busy moving into a great new community office space and continuing to learn the ropes of non-profit-dom.
As for the new office, it rocks! We have moved into a shared office space in Northeast Portland with four other great non-profits: the Portland Fruit Tree Project, Friends of Family Farmers and the Northeast Portland Tool Library. It's really brought a great energy to the place and we're honored to be a part of it. Our office is located in a two bedroom house that sits next to the campus of our landlord, the Redeemer Lutheran Church and there's plenty of space to park the bus and to install renewable energy demonstration material. It also comes with a vacant lot (seen in the photo) that will be transforming into a community garden with permaculture design, managed by the Fruit Tree Project. We're excited to be in the Killingsworth/Alberta neighborhood and to take an active role in creating a community center of sustainability resources.
5/12/2009
The 2009 school year is coming to a close and although we've only recently completed the first SolTrekker educational vehicle, we've had a great time getting into classrooms and mixing it up with the students. Thus far, we've presented at Roosevelt School in Northeast Portland, the Earth Day Events at Portland Community College, and just recently presented as a part of the Riverdale High School Sustainability Symposium. What an inspiring thing to see local students so well informed about key environmental, energy and sustainability issues. We're looking forward to more!
4/16/2009
We are completely enthused to announce a local project that has been in the works for several months. In partnership with Portland Public Schools Community Transition Program, SolTrekker is helping to create the Solar Cafe: Portland's first solar powered food cart specializing in waffles and other dishes that integrate locally sourced fruits and veggies wherever possible.
The Community Transition Program helps under-served teens transition from high school and into jobs, vocational training or post secondary education. The kids at the CTP have been involved as collaborators in the entire process of creating this small business, from putting together a business plan and projecting expenses and income to designing the menu and the logo. When the cart is up and running, the CTP youth will work paid internships in the cafe during the program's regular hours and will have the opportunity to advance into a regular paid position and work with a trained food service consultant on weekends. The goal is to see these internships and trainings act as a springboard to even better, higher paying jobs in the food service industry. Rather than just teaching the youth how to flip waffles, the ST Cafe will be designed to immerse them in the experience of small business management and help foster an entreprenuerial mindset.
From the SolTrekker side of the partnership, our role is to help the CTP youth create a functioning example of sustainability in action by augmenting the cart with as much solar power as possible and by consulting on best practices to minimize the cafe's ecological footprint and sourcing food and other materials locally.
At this point, we have secured a cart that will be transformed into the cafe, but we are seeking donations from individuals and businesses to help offset the start-up costs. All donations made to the SolTrekker organization until September 2009 will go toward this project. If you find the project worthwhile, please click here to make a tax-deductible donation. Look for a Solar Cafe page on the website soon, as well as additional updates.
