Joy Christenson, owner of the Fountain on Locust in St. Louis, was the winner of the Naked Roof Contest and a free solar energy system from Missouri clean-energy company Brightergy.[/caption]
The air was abuzz with excitement in downtown St. Louis, Missouri on Friday, May 10 when we picked up the drumline from Vashon High School. Unbeknownst to her, Joy Grdnic Christenson, the owner of the Fountain on Locust, had won our Naked Roof Contest and we were about to surprise her with the news.
The Fountain on Locust specializes in delicious fresh food, fine ice creams, chocolates and retro cocktails, all in a one-of-a-kind, hand-painted, Art Deco interior in downtown St. Louis. Joy is also a syndicated radio comedienne and local personality. She’s particularly known for her creative marketing ideas for her restaurant and ice cream shop, which shined through in her Naked Roof Contest entry.
We launched the Naked Roof Contest – a call for local businesses to “Show Us Their Naked Roofs” – in Q1 2013. Entries were judged by a panel who looked for creative storytelling. In Joy’s entry, she clothed her naked roof with coats and jackets, saying, solar panels would be a much better solution.
We thought a creative entry deserved an equally creative announcement, which is why that Friday afternoon saw us parading down Locust, led by the drum line.
Construction began on the Fountain’s solar-energy system the week of May 20. During the announcement, we awarded Joy with the “check” for 25,259 kilowatts of electricity – the amount of solar electricity her system will produce annually, and approximately 15 percent of the total annual electricity use at the Fountain on Locust. It will also save her as much as $2,800 in the first year and more than $65,000 over the 25-30 year lifetime of the solar-energy system.
Joy’s system will also prevent the release of 17.8 metric tons of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, into Missouri’s atmosphere each year. This is the environmental equivalent of offsetting the emissions of 1,998 gallons of gasoline consumed, or of planting more than 450 tree seedlings.
All in all, it was a successful partnership and led to a fun afternoon on Locust St.! Here’s to a Brightergy “solar sundae” on the menu sometime soon…
Check out the video of the fanfare on Locust:
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