The Refuge House provides direct services to victims of domestic violence and sexual assault, their children, and families. 

The Carbon Fun has completed several projects benefiting the Refuge House, including: 

• Replaced old energy-hog appliances with a new EnergyStar refrigerator and freezer.   
• Retrofitted lighting with CFL bulbs in the kitchen and dining room area.   
• Purchased new electronic ballast fixtures and T-8 bulbs to replace inefficient fixtures 
• Installed new programmable thermostats in the offices and transitional housing units
• Facilitated energy efficiency training by the City of Tallahassee Energy Services Department for Refuge House staff. 

Elder Care Services provides community-based care to a broad spectrum of seniors, including preparing meals. 

The Carbon Fund installed on-demand gas water heaters which will not only lower their bill for heating water, but will allow them to work more efficiently.  Elder Care prepares 1000 to 1200 meals daily, and before this installation staff had to wait an hour for the water to heat up as they cleaned up from the morning’s food preparation.

Grace Mission works to provide community support by fighting food insecurity, donating clothes, and participating in clean ups. The Carbon Fund completed several projects at Grace Mission including:  

• Retrofitting lighting 
• Converting the electric water heater system to a tankless on-demand gas water heater
• Installing a commercial Energy Star refrigerator.  

These upgrades and improvements are expected to save over $2,100 in utility bills and 9 tons of carbon annually!  The impact of energy costs to Grace Mission is significant when you realize that in 2011 Grace Mission relied on 252 volunteers to provide 19,000 volunteer hours dedicated to the Children’s Program alone – they served 21,501 meals, provided 1144 showers, and cleaned 416 loads of laundry.

Bethany Family Apartments, established in 2007 on South Meridian Street under the umbrella of Bethany Family Services, is a residential complex that serves the poor.  The Carbon Fund project addressed opportunities for saving energy and dollars on utility bills, by:

• increasing ceiling insulation
• repairing HVAC closet leaks
• cleaning the HVAC coils

Hope Community is a transitional housing program for homeless families, single women, and single men located on West Pensacola Street.  The program’s goals are to provide a recovery-based program, get people into jobs, and find stable housing.  It is the only program of its kind in our eight-county Big Bend area, and over 70% of HOPE residents move into stable housing. 

The Community Carbon Fund has completed two projects at Hope which included:

• Installing programmable thermostats with internal limits throughout the campus, allowing the agency to save around $6500 annually.  
• Replacing electric hot water heaters with on-demand gas water heaters in the Family and Women’s Dormitories resulting in an annual savings of $1200 per dorm. 
• Converting electric water heaters to on-demand gas in the Men’s Dorm, which houses between 50 and 60 men.  Now all three dorms will have hot water as needed.  

Through the efforts of the CCF at the Hope Community, utility bills have been consistently lower, saving as much as $800-$1000 month and reducing CO2 emissions by over 20 metric tons annually.  The savings in utility bills is equivalent to one quarter of the Hope Community’s food budget.

Sustainable Tallahassee was honored in September 2013 to be designated as a “Champion of Hope” by the Big Bend Homeless Coalition for our contributions.

The Carbon Fund installed a mini-split heat pump to cool the computer server room on Laura Lee Avenue. This allows the agency to program their administrative office thermostat to shut down on nights and weekends rather than cooling the entire administrative space to 72 degrees just to accommodate the needs of the computer equipment.  This will result in significant cost savings and will allow the staff to work in more comfortable temperatures.

On Arbor Day, January 25, 2014, the Carbon Fund  donated 110 live oak trees, and planted them in a colonnade at the entrance to the park, as a carbon sequestration effort.  In addition to the carbon sequestration benefit, as the trees grow and mature they will provide shade and improved aesthetics for park users.