We've gone solar!

The initiative was created by a group of Canterbury University students who were challenged at the US Embassy-organised Connecting Young Leaders conference to come up with a socially responsible solution to a problem within their community.

They believed to be most effective they would assist a charity that was already helping people in need. After discovering the most significant property cost for Ronald McDonald House South Island was energy, they opted to fundraise for the installation of a large solar-panel system to allow the money currently spent on energy to go back into the families where it is most needed.

The team – led by Kendra Titheridge – gained $25,000 of support from sustainability-minded individuals and groups. They then worked with EnaSolar, a Christchurch-based, New Zealand owned and operated Solar PV manufacturer, to implement Stage One – which looks a little something like this…

See our solar in action

Click here to see an animation designed by Enasolar, which shows our solar system running in real time.  Find out things like how many pieces of toast we could cook with the energy we’ve generated since installation!

We’ve already seen incredible savings thanks to solar, to the tune of more than $60,000 since installation in late 2015. 2018 sees us embarking upon the process of creating a business case for stages two and three of this project, so we can increase that even more!

• 2016 savings: $27,991
• 2017 savings: $26,446
• 2018 savings to date: $7,720
• Total savings to date: $62,157

Thank you to our incredible sponsors and partners

This project would not be possible without the generosity of our community. Their donations are gifts that keeps on giving, allowing us to continue reducing our costs long into the future, and reinvest funds back into our core mission. A big thank you to the following:

Dennis Chapman – Dawne Hilson – Dorothy Jones – Lindsay Crossen – Leonie van den Bergh – Ross Cammell – Lianne Dalziel – Hayley Young – Anake – Raf – Don & Mojo – Mark Stewart – Katie Holmes – Di Christie – Gabby – Kathy Loeb