Where do you live?

Hey, SEEEDVille! This week feels like I’m for real getting to work here. We have a budget for the next career readiness training, plans for community workshops, and some new members of the SEEED family. Time is flying by!

Y'all know that SEEED has a reputation to being #1 at getting people interested in energy efficiency. It’s not hard a hard sell when you’re talking about weatherizing somebody’s house-- that means saving money on KUB bills. Now SEEED is planning to kick that education up a notch by hosting workshops in all the senior centers in Knox County to teach people how to save money on their utility bills for free. I’ve been learning from the best programs across the country on workshops like these, so I’m super excited to help write the content for these workshops. Plans aren’t final, but we’ve got Mayor Burchett on our side, so we’re feeling good! Keep up to date about that on our facebook page. The workshops are free, but there’s a special ticket so don’t miss out!

This week we hit the jackpot with new SEEED family. SEEED has needed an accountant for a while. As great as Stan is, he’s not an orderly person. Many thanks to Michelle, who’s been a lifesaver, but it’s a lot of work. So now we have not one but TWO new folks around the office! Steve is a pro who has plenty of experience with management and finance and a B.A. from Lincoln Memorial University. He loves to ride motorcycles, too, so not only can he sort out our accounting but he can look very cool while doing it. J And welcome also to Samantha, our new finance and accounting intern! Samantha is a junior at my and John’s alma mater. GO VOLS! She’s studying finance with a collateral in accounting, and she just finished her second year of Mandarin. Wow! She is also interested in sustainability, so we’ll see if we can pull her away from the computer to work on the green side of things.

John’s been filming around the office to get the hang of making videos. You should have seen him yesterday practicing until he had the words just right and looked camera-ready. Keep an eye out on facebook for his video coming soon!

Mostly lately I’ve been working on how to get the word out about what we do here at SEEED. I think our work is pretty cool, but if somebody doesn't know about it we can't help them and they can't help us. This is where you come in! Over the next week of two, we will be sending letters and emails and calling the people of SEEEDVille to tell them what we want to do to get young people jobs while educating communities about energy efficiency. Obviously you care about SEEED, so I don’t want to leave you out! Our email address is seeedknox@gmail.com. Email me your name and mailing address, and I’ll make sure you get a letter from us with our vision for SEEED and our plans to get young people to work and on the pathway out of poverty.

Talk to you soon!

-Lee