We delivered the bulk of the chargers to Betsy and her team at Veggie Island. They had a program in place to provide elderly and sick with pre-programmed phones so that they can get help in an emergency. Our chargers would keep these donated phones or their own phones powered up.

Training the great organizers at Veggie Island

Solar charging an iPhone at Veggie Island

View from outside of panel at Veggie Island

Explaining system to volunteer at Veggie Island

Tools ready to clean some houses at Veggie Island

Occupy Sandy’s HQ at Yana on 113th Street also received more. I knew they were needed when I heard “I love you” when I walked in with more boxes containing kits. An organizer told me that several residents were moved to tears when they learned that they could keep their phone charged and stay in communication with their family.

Walking over to Yana

Training organizer at Yana

Finally, we installed a charger with a family that had reached out to us directly.

Installing panel on outside of window

Explaining how to use light and charger

Panel outside window facing roughly South

Here are some other pictures from the day.

Surfers are back (not sure if this is good or bad)

Absurdity - this phone in the middle of the beach still worked.

New Dorp in Staten Island was particularly hard hit by Sandy. The Hallowed Sons Motorcycle Club responded by setting up a relief center there, coordinating lots of volunteer work and patrolling the area in the evening. We visited and set up several phone charging stations up on their tents and they are charging from them today.

The Rockaways were cold and wet on Tuesday (although nice and sunny today, thankfully) and there weren’t a lot of residents out on the street in the area East of 45th Street, but we talked to those that we found and if they didn’t have a generator, we offered to install the phone charger and light. Two staff-members from FEMA who were going door-to-door made suggestions about which houses to visit. Residents also introduced us to their neighbors who they though could use a kit.

The good news about Voltaic installing the systems is that we get the panels positioned properly and have some time to explain to the end customers how to use everything. We also get hugs, smiles and very direct data about how to improve the product.

Direct distribution is, however, very resource intensive. We distributed a small number of kits to staff at three locations: Occupy at 113th, Occupy HQ near 39th Street and Rockaway Taco. These can be brought up to deserving residents by people making deliveries or medical assessments.

We’ll be back again on Tuesday to do more. Our own Buy One Give One program is sold out due to an incredible response, but if you want to donate we suggest Occupy Sandy’s Amazon registry. This gets the gear that is truly needed to the people who truly need it. Buy a pump and you’ll clear someone’s basement.

We had three modes of distributing our kits to try to make sure they a) got to the people who needed them most and b) were installed for maximum effectiveness. We could have easily dropped the kits off somewhere and they would be gone in ten minutes and likely not used to their best advantage.

Piggyback on Medical Walkthroughs
There are numerous hi-rise buildings all down the Rockaway Coast. Some are run by the city, other by private companies. On Saturday, we saw some with hallway lighting from generators and backup boiler systems that brought in some heat, but there were still a lot that were completely dark. In them, the elderly and sick are essentially trapped in their rooms and are dependent on others to bring them food, water (especially on higher floors) and medicine.

Occupy Sandy at 113th Street organized teams all day to go door to door and find out the health status of individuals inside their rooms and determine which medicines they needed. They would attempt to return later in the day with prescriptions filled. To complete this work, they would have to go up dark stairwells and hallways. We’re not sure why essentially startup organizations had to fill this void (Doctors Without Borders left earlier in the week, no sign of any government action), but we were really impressed with Occupy’s organizers efforts, adaptability and thoughtfulness.

List of Buildings to Target

Shayne trained these teams doing medical walk-throughs how to install the solar panel and how to work the light and phone charger. We then gave each team 3-4 kits to bring on their rounds.

Shayne explaining kit to Katie and Eric

Shayne Training one Team of (amazing) Volunteers

Door to Door Installs
In the neighborhood by Occupy’s 113th Street location, we went into a number of apartments and installed the panels facing South out the window. The system we devised was placing industrial double sided tape on the back of the panel and sticking the panel on the outside of the window. While not perfect, it was simple and quick. Placing the panel outside the window will probably generate 2-4 times as much power as if the panel was inside (the windows are often dirty, there are screens, line of site to sun issues). We got a lot of hugs as people were able to charge their phones and begin communicating again. Lights seemed like less of an issue as this group had access to flashlights.

Improvised Panel Mounting Mechanism - Simple & Fast

Panel Mounted and Phone Charging

Panel Mounted on Window Facing South

Street Meets
Although we preferred to install the systems ourselves, we met a number of very nice families on the streets that were heading home before nightfall. They often were out of candles and almost always out of cell phone power. We trained them on the lights and phone charging and and gave them the kits.

What’s Next
We plan to go out again on Tuesday to distribute and install the balance of the kits. The situation changes rapidly so we’ll be reaching out to all our contacts to determine where the need is greatest and head directly there.

Room for Improvement
Voltaic learned an incredible amount yesterday about what’s needed in emergency’s like this from both a product and process standpoint. In future posts, we’ll focus on how we can greatly improve product design to make the system simpler and easier to use.

Above photos by Clayton Cubitt, rest by Voltaic.

We put together a basic 3.4 watt kit aimed at providing basic lighting and cell phone charging for individuals. It was made up of:
– a 3.4 Watt 6V solar panel
– an 11 Watt hour (3,000mah) Li Polymer rechargeable battery with a 5V USB output
– an extension wire between the panel and the battery with a waterproof connection and a mini USB adapter to connect to the battery
– plus a USB light running off the battery
– and finally a set of phone adapters and a USB cable for charging cell phones etc.

We had put together a higher powered kit with relief centers in mind. Actually they seemed to have generators and charging stations for cell phones. In one case the Greenpeace rolling sunshine solar vehicle was put into service as a charging station. Watch the video.

There were quite a few relief efforts going on, mainly grass roots church and community groups. The national guard was there and a lot of police and utility workers, but they seemed to be focused more on cleanup and restoring power.

The Occupy movement was relatively well organized. We found them in the community center of one of the high rise buildings at 59th and Rockaway Beach Blvd. It sounded like they had indeed occupied in the face of some resistance from building management.

There was clearly a need for our solar lighting /cell phone charging kits. The biggest issue was getting them to the people who needed them most. The organizers made it clear that if we just put them out on the tables they would be gone immediately “hey, this is still New York”.

Eventually we learned that there were a lot of elderly and immobile people stuck in their apartments. With no electricity, the elevators were not working and these were about 16 story buildings. They had a list on the wall of 37 apartments that needed help, that was just in one of the 3 towers, the remaining ones were still to be checked.

There was one young (really fit) guy, Raha, who was trekking up and down the stairs to check on people and bring them what they needed. These seemed like the right people to set up with solar. They were not in a position to come down those stairs to plug their phones into the charge station running off the generator, and torches were in short supply.

We managed to enlist Raha as our solar installer so he could install the kits as he did his rounds. We went through all the product details with him and he was up to speed pretty quickly. Then he headed back upstairs with the first ones in hand.

There is talk of power being out for another 3 weeks in Rockaway so although the disaster is over for many, there are still many thousands of people in the dark.

Please help us expand our efforts by participating in our Buy One Give One program. We’d like to have more people get access to safe lighting options and keep their cell phone access.