When the Mid-Atlantic Renewable Energy Association (MAREA) held its first Renewable Energy and Sustainable Living Festival in 2005, three solar installers set up exhibits. For this year’s event, scheduled for Sept. 18-20 at the Kempton Community Center in Berks County, 25 solar installers from the tri-state region alone will be on hand.
The festival also expects to top last year’s attendance figure of 11,000, as sustainability and the financial incentives that now go along with it have taken front-row seats in the country’s economic recovery.
“People who come here leave with hope and optimism because we are empowering the individual to be a good citizen,” says Archie Follweiler, one of more than a dozen volunteers for the non-profit MAREA,
This year’s theme is Harvest the Power, and at the center of the festival are 10 workshops covering topics like small-scale farming, converting your car to electric or vegetable oil, solar installation and biodiesel. New this year is a full slate of music and art programming, adding a little of what Follweiller likes to call “Woodstock” to the casual, people-friendly festival. Music will be played on a solar-operated sound stage brought from Ithaca, N.Y.
With 150 vendors, though, there will be as much learning as grooving, with topics ranging from geothermal to transportation to green building.
“I look forward to meeting the business people out there on the front lines doing work,” says Follweiller, a 20-year realtor in nearby Kutztown. “I’m an admirer of them, taking a risk to improve their lot and society.”
Source: Archie Follweiller, Mid-Atlantic Renewable Energy Association
Writer: Joe Petrucci