C3 is teaming up with households, neighborhoods, and community groups to make climate action personal and fun through a series of "Power Parties" to fuel a community-wide Home Energy Challenge. It’s a super-informative, accessible, and social way to reduce our community’s carbon footprint.  

The Challenge will be on a rolling schedule, so you can join whatever time of year it’s most convenient for you and your team. You’ll have 6-8 weeks to rack up as many points for actions taken as possible. Then we’ll gather the community to celebrate our progress once a year (tentatively planned for the Fall).

This model helps us take action with the support of our social networks. It’s a great way to make a difference on climate right here in our own backyard!

How Power Parties work

A volunteer host invites their friends over and everyone enjoys catching up over food and beverage. Then a member of the C3 team talks about the initiative, why it's important, and what we can do as households to make a difference on climate. From there, households can sign up at cvillechallenge.org and take action within a team or on their own. 

With our platform, you can calculate your carbon footprint according to Charlottesville/Albemarle-specific data. You can select from a menu of actions, which displays projected cost, potential savings, and the positive environmental impact, to make a personal plan for your household. We’ve also added local resources to have at your fingertips.

The cool thing is that you'll be able to see the combined impact of everyone's actions on a community-wide dashboard!

And did we mention it will be fun?

Hosts

Behind every good party is a great host! Hosting a power party is easy and fun. NOTE: with COVID-19, we have gone virtual with our Power Parties.

Before the Party:

• Invite 5 to 10 households to your home

• Communicate with C3 about who's coming and general logistics about set up (space, internet access, etc.)

• Decide if you or someone on your team will be the Team Lead

During:

• Provide finger foods/appetizers and drinks

• Have fun!

• Let C3 do the rest! We'll bring our projector and presentation

After:

• Send Thank You & HEC Link to your team

• Send encouraging texts or local deals (e.g. “LEDs on sale at Lowe’s!”)

• Spread the word! Connect any other friends or neighbors interested in hosting their own Power Party to C3

Totally up to you:

• Include kids or not

• Co-host with a friend

• Create your account and a team beforehand

• Create a theme at your party to increase the fun factor

Guests

Of course guests are the central ingredient of a great Power Party and team-approach to making a climate difference in Charlottesville!

By making climate action personal and fun, we're hoping to spur individuals to invest in energy savings actions their home and shift their lifestyle to more climate-friendly habits to create a cleaner, greener and stronger community.

So have fun, then sit back and learn how we can lose a ton, together.

Team Lead

The key to a successful team is having a designated motivator who is organized and willing to rally folks! Usually this person is the host, but it’s totally fine to have one person host and a guest step up to be the team lead.

You don't have to be a climate expert or be uber green to be a team lead.  And we know you're busy, so we've made it easy! Here's what we ask of our team leads:

• (Optional) Host a Power Party or Attend a Power Party

• Join the Home Energy Challenge

• Create and name a team

• Commit to giving a friendly nudge to team members 1-2 times per month during the season via email or text message.