Provided

At the former Henry St. John School, students prepare to give out 12,000 free bags Oct. 29 as part of Into the Streets. The bags contained a compact fluorescent light bulb and information on inexpensive ways to save money on energy.

More than 600 Cornell students hit the streets Oct. 29 to hand out some 12,000 free bags containing a compact fluorescent light bulb and information on inexpensive ways to save money on energy.

Another 800 student volunteers worked on other projects at 80 different agencies across Tompkins County Oct. 28-29. The 1,400 volunteers were part of the 20th anniversary of "Into the Streets," Cornell's annual day of community service sponsored by the Cornell Public Service Center.

If all the bulbs are used to replace the old energy-inefficient kind, "it would save $667,000 for county residents and prevent the emission of 8.5 million pounds of carbon dioxide, or the equivalent of taking 553 cars off the road. And that's only from screwing in a free light bulb," said Mike Koplinka-Loehr '84, senior energy management coordinator at Cornell Cooperative Extension of Tompkins County (CCE-TC).

In partnership with CCE-TC, some 7,000 households in the City of Ithaca received a bag; an additional 5,000 bags were distributed to rural county residents through their town and village halls.

The bags also included "an application for a home energy assessment (worth more than $400 and available at no or reduced cost for households with incomes under $291,200), alternative transportation options, [and information on] how to buy more local food and reduce the cost of waste disposal," said Koplinka-Loehr. They also included information on the countywide campaign, "Get Your GreenBack Tompkins," set to launch in January, and a raffle ticket for a chance to win more than $2,000 in prizes from local energy efficiency retail product providers.

In addition to the more than 60 local sponsoring organizations of the campaign, which are listed at http://getyourgreenbacktompkins.org, is Avery Hairston '14, an economics major in the College of Arts and Sciences, who donated $10,000 from ReLightNY, an organization he founded as a high school freshman in the New York City area.

The campaign aims "to inspire every household and business in the county to take at least one new energy- and money-saving step in their transportation, energy, waste and food choices in the next year, which can save money and create jobs for Tompkins residents and bring the county closer to its goal of reducing carbon emissions by 80 percent by 2050," said Koplinka-Loehr, co-coordinator of the Get Your GreenBack Tompkins effort.

"Many people don't realize how easy it is to make simple changes in their home that can lead to real savings," said campaign logistics co-coordinator Shawn Lindabury of CCE-TC.

Koplinka-Loehr and Lindabury note that if 80 percent of income-eligible county homeowners complete home energy upgrades after getting a free energy assessment, it would result in $34.3 million in energy savings and 850 new jobs to complete the upgrades.