Newest articles on The Sacramento Press tagged as "solar cooking"

Solar Cookers International Welcomes New Executive Director

2010-02-02T17:04:34Z

Solar Cookers International announced on February 1st that Dolores Weis has joined the organization as its Executive Director, effective immediately. Ms. Weis brings eighteen years of humanitarian management experience across many countries and cultures, including Eastern Africa and Eastern Europe. A large portion of her efforts have focused on health and women, issues closely intertwined with the work of Solar Cookers International. In addition, Ms. Weis has been instrumental in dramatically growing several organizations and will leverage this experience to capture and shepherd the many opportunities that lay ahead for SCI.

"We are thrilled to have found in Dolores the rare combination of proven leadership skills, strong administrative capabilities, and international experience needed to help SCI broaden its scope and increase its impact," said SCI Board President, Gary Hursh.

Prior to joining Solar Cookers International, Ms. Weis served as Executive Director for the Navajo Lutheran Mission in Arizona where she was responsible for creating and implementing strategic directives involving systems, procedures, program development and fundraising to improve the overall operations of the organization. She also served in various senior-level positions with Air Serv International, Women for Women International and the American Red Cross. Ms. Weis holds a Bachelor's degree in Communications, a Practical Nursing degree, and a Masters degree in Public Administration.

Solar Cookers International to Help Haitian Families

2010-01-25T17:41:13Z

Solar Cookers International (SCI), a not-for-profit organization founded in 1987, announced the launch of the Haiti Project, which aims to send one complete solar cooking kit to at least 200 Haitian families that were devastated by the recent earthquake. The initial fundraising goal for this project is $8,000.

Even before the disaster, SCI ranked Haiti as one of the top twenty countries in the world where solar cooking is poised to be very successful and tremendously beneficial. The recent earthquake, in combination with the country’s already scarce fuel and power resources, spells an immediate need for solar cooking training and supplies. Forty dollars is enough to provide one family with a solar cooker, a cooking pot, and a water pasteurization indicator (WAPI), a device that shows when solar-heated water has been rid of pathogens and is safe to drink. “With Haiti’s abundant sunshine, each solar cooker will provide a fuel-free means of cooking many meals, reducing the burden to buy charcoal or fuel-wood in this heavily deforested country, both now and into the future,” said Bev Blum, SCI’s interim Executive Director.

Solar cooking projects have been ongoing in Haiti for decades, so local groups who can facilitate training and distribution are already in place. Unfortunately, at least one confirmed death among SCI’s network was the leader of a solar cooking program and one warehouse filled with much-needed solar cooking supplies was destroyed. SCI is working with Sun Ovens International and Friends of Haiti Organization (FOHO) to send as many solar cookers as possible to Haiti in a shipping container in the coming weeks. Once again, the goal of the Haiti Project is to send enough supplies for at least 200 families. Additional solar cooking supplies will be distributed if surplus funds are collected.

Solar Cookers International (SCI) is widely considered the world pioneer in advancing solar cooking through its product development and field training experience. SCI has improved the lives of tens of thousands through the development, distribution and training of solar cooking systems in Africa. SCI helped invent an innovative “water pasteurization indicator,” a simple, life-saving device that measures when solar-heated water is clear of all disease-causing microbes.

Meaningful Carbon Offset - Solar Cooking

2009-11-25T16:43:00Z

Solar Cooker System as “Most Meaningful Carbon Offset” Campaign Launched

Sacramento, CA, November 24, 2009. Solar Cookers International (SCI), a not-for-profit organization founded in 1987, announced today the launch of “The most meaningful carbon offset is also the simplest” campaign.

This campaign is arriving at a time when an enormous number of individuals want to do something meaningful to slow global warming. Yet, while our governments are painfully slow to act, options to offset our own carbon usage have been limited and, for many, of questionable impact. A recent report that voluntary carbon offsets for airline travelers do more to assuage guilt than reduce carbon emmissions has created a cloud of doubt around the benefits of such programs. "SCI's campaign is different from airline programs in that placing solar cookers in the hands of people who would otherwise burn wood or fossil fuels, actually reduces black carbon by up to one ton per family per year," says Kevin Porter, Director of Education Resources at SCI.

SCI is launching an online campaign, with a video where people can make a fifty-dollar donation that will allow SCI to provide one of the neediest families on earth with a Solar Cookit system and necessary training. Donors of the $50 CooKit systems will receive certificates showing a woman with a solar cooker next to the large pile of wood that will not have to be gathered or burned as a result of the tax deductible carbon offset contribution.

“Solar cooking emits zero carbon, and it reduces the desperate need to dangerously gather and burn wood in deforested environments,” said Honey Walters, of the SCI Board of Directors. “Each Cookit provides recipients with everything they need to transition from wood fires to solar cooking, including essential on-the-ground training, a solar cooker, a black cooking pot, a clean water container and an innovative water indicator to tell when water has heated enough to kill deadly microbes in drinking water.”

Solar Cookers International is widely considered the world pioneer in advancing solar cooking, through its product development and field training experience. SCI has improved the lives of tens of thousands through the development, distribution and training of solar cooking devices in Africa. SCI helped invent an innovative “water pasteurization indicator,” a simple life-saving device that measures when solar-heated water is clear of all disease-causing microbes. For more information, visit www.solarcookers.org.

Progressive Source Communications created the campaign and the video found on the webpage.

Sacramento's Solar Cookers International shine

2009-08-26T04:02:40Z

Sacramento's Solar Cookers International (SCI), a group that helps communities harness the power of the sun to cook food and pasteurize water, will be holding their annual "Shine On" event Wednesday evening. The event will educate SCI's supporters on their successes of the last year and highlight future projects, said the event's coordinator Rene Hamlin.

About 250 people are expected to fill the Sierra 2 Center from 5 to 9 p.m. to listen to speeches by SCI co-founder Dr. Bob Metcalf and Capitol Public Radio food reporter and solar cook Sherry Cole. Those who attend will be able to view cooking demonstrations, eat solar-cooked food and even participate in a silent auction featuring art by Mary Frank, a long-time solar cooker and inscape (abstract) artist.

SCI began in 1987 when Metcalf, a microbiology professor, got together with Beverly Blum and solar cookers Sherry Cole and Barbara Kerr. They put together manuals to enable others to build solar cookers, and shortly afterward, they began manufacturing the cookers themselves.

There are three types of solar cookers that have unique functions, Hamlin said: a box cooker, a parabolic cooker and a panel cooker. A box cooker can bake, a parabolic cooker can fry, and a panel cooker can cook a stew, but most people use all three like a crock pot heater, she added.

"When we're educating and introducing [people] to solar cooking, we talk about it as if it's a crock pot," Hamlin explained. "You can do slow-cooked foods or one-pot meals really easily in the solar cooker."

A benefit of the panel cooker is its portability. Though most other solar cookers use heavier material like glass, wood, and plastic, it uses lightweight materials like cardboard and reflective aluminum and can be folded to the size of a vinyl record.

"In the United States, it's an alternative to using electricity or gas so you can save money," Hamlin said. "Outside the United States in fuel-scarce communities, it's an alternative to cooking over an open fire."

SCI also has an office in Nairobi, Kenya, where they have been working with the Ministry of Water and Irrigation on educating officials on how to test for bacteria like E. coli. They are also working with U.N. officials on building a mobile microbiology lab to be able to test water supplies.

Available for sampling at Shine On will be solar roasted vegetables, vegetarian hot dogs, cakes, cookies and pies. The event is free and the Sierra 2 Center is located at 2791 24th St.

"Sacramento is really nice for solar cooking and has about 200 solar cooking days a year," Hamiln explained. "You need to make sure they are cloudless days, [and] not rainy or too windy."

For more information visit SCI's website, solarcooking.org and The Solar Cooking Archive Wiki.

Photographs credit Solar Cookers International.