Helen Kilian (Photo by Lisa Aciukewicz)

A new student Environmental Club has set a tough goal for itself: getting 150 households in town to participate in National Grid’s GreenStart renewable energy program.

“We want to promote the idea of conservation,” Bromfield junior Helen Kilian told a group of movers and shakers at a May 8 presentation on the solar challenge incentive program being offered by the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative (MTC).

Selectmen, School Committee members, and community members gathered in Volunteers Hall last Thursday to hear about the program which, according to MTC spokesperson Martha Broad, challenges communities to increase participation in GreenStart or to increase donations to the New England Wind Fund by June 30. The prize? A 2-kilowatt solar photo-voltaic array for use anywhere in town.

Kilian said that the Environmental Club at Bromfield has decided to take on the challenge, actively seeking out participants, with a goal of securing the PV array for educational use at Bromfield. The array would only generate about 200 kilowatt hours a month, not enough to power the high school, but enough for students to learn firsthand about solar power.

“The educational piece is so important,” she said.

Some in the audience, including Board of Selectmen Chairman Leo Blair, expressed doubt that enough sign-ups could be secured by June 30 to win the array, and offered alternative suggestions on how the credits earned for the additional household participation in GreenStart could be used to benefit other town projects, such as a solar-powered trash compacter at the transfer station.

“I think you’re underestimating the town and the kids,” said Kilian, who told the group that students had their eyes set on something bigger than just a PV array. “We want to bring in the town, the community, other towns—we want it to be statewide, even nationwide,” she said, speaking about motivating people to take action in the face of climate change and fossil fuel depletion.

In a subsequent interview with the Press Kilian said that the Environmental Club—a group of 10 to 15 students—had been meeting weekly since March. The students, in grades eight to 11, show up in the Bromfield cafeteria every Wednesday at 7 a.m., she said, to talk about issues related to climate change and energy conservation. Students in seventh grade have also expressed interest, she added, but haven’t yet started attending meetings.

“Climate change is going to be the problem of my generation,” said Kilian. “It’s been sort of dumped on us to figure out how to solve the problems.”

Kilian organized the club—which is not yet an official school-affiliated club—after being inspired by her involvement with Harvard Local and last year’s Step It Up campaign on the Common, which she also helped organize.

“I knew other kids who had an interest [in climate change issues] but they had nowhere else to manifest that interest,” she said.

Kilian said the Step It Up campaign had had a big impact on her. “It felt great to stand at the top of the Common, looking at everything going on, and thinking ‘We did this.’ It was a big sense of accomplishment. I want everyone else [in the club] to have that feeling too—it’s the best feeling in the world.”

Kilian said that one of the goals for the club is to reach out to the community.

“We need everybody on board to make something happen,” she said, adding, “I work off the principle that we all have incredible power to make change in the world, even if on a small scale, a town scale.”

The main topic at upcoming club meetings will be how to mobilize to reach the 150-new-households goal by June 30, said Kilian. The group has already passed out information at Town Meeting; has sent informational e-mails to officials listed on the town website; and will be creating a flyer to be sent home with students at the elementary school, as part of a strategy to influence parents through their children. They also hope to arrange a special assembly on the subject at the elementary school and plan to take their case to civic groups such as the Lions Club. Kilian’s passion about the project is evident.

“If I wrote a mission statement [for the club] it would say something along the lines of … bringing the town together to develop a mindset about energy use and conservation, and have it really explode,” she said.

“If we get the 150 sign-ups we’ll blow the other towns [in the solar challenge] out of the water,” said Kilian.

The sought-after 2kW solar array, in addition to having educational value, will also be symbolic, she said, noting that the very presence of the panels on the high school will get people to think about energy consumption.

Commenting on alternative suggestions made at the May 8 meeting, Kilian said, “If we meet the challenge, I feel like there will be a mutiny if we don’t get the PV array. The students aren’t going to want someone to come in and take away what they’ve been working for. We’re the ones doing the legwork.”

She added that it was “a little overwhelming” to hear all the options discussed by the adults at the meeting, when the students had such a clear goal in mind.

“Sure, I could sit down and do a cost-benefit analysis,” she said, “or we could just go for it.”