First Afrikan Presbyterian Church Receives Matching Grant

First Afrikan Presbyterian Church in Lithonia, headed by Pastor Dr. Mark O. Lomax, received an Energy Improvement Matching Grant under the Power Wise program for the amount of $5,240.  This grant will be matched by the congregation and will be used to replace two smaller air conditioning units with Energy Star® rated 13 SEER units.  Additionally, all manual thermostats will be removed and programmable thermostats used in their place.  Finally, additional insulation will be added to the attic to reduce energy costs. 

In addition to education and expanded energy conservation within the church, the Creation Care Ministry Team will design and implement a two-phase home and neighborhood campaign. The first phase will educate and support individual home energy conservation through structured family partnering experiences. In the second phase, the First African Community Action Team will work with existing community partners to identify and disseminate ideas for neighborhood energy conservation.

First Afrikan Presbyterian Church was one of eight congregations that were awarded Power Wise Energy Improvement Matching Grants in June 2010.   Each will be discussed here in the Georgia Interfaith Power & Light blog over the coming weeks.

The next round of matching grants applications are due November 15, 2010.  The applications can be found here on our website.  Up to $25,000 is available to congregations interested in implementing suggestions from their Power Wise Energy Audit Reports to reduce energy consumption and costs.  Congregations must be able to show that they have their matching funds within six months of receiving the grant award, in addition to being a member of Power Wise and having had an energy assessment completed by one of GIPL's Power Wise Energy Auditors.