Wake Up and Smell the (Solar-Made) Coffee by Pau Tapay

A little past 6 in the morning in a small booth in the Tiendesitas shopping area, the heavenly smell of coffee began to waft in the morning air. A few more seconds, and a large crowd of people had already gathered around the Solar Café eagerly awaiting their cup of coffee. And it wasn’t ordinary coffee, mind you. It was coffee made using solar-powered coffee makers, which explained why there were solar panels to the side of the booth.

Serving coffee seemed pretty simple at first. (Or at least way easier than biking until you’re dead tired, especially for someone like me, who doesn’t know the first thing about riding a bike.) Precious, KT and I were pretty confident we could handle everything. After all, how hard could pouring and brewing coffee be? Pretty hard, it turns out. What we weren’t expecting was the size of the crowd. As we served coffee to bikers of all ages, police officers, journalists, and so on, we realized that the crowd was in no way thinning out. Of course, while it got somewhat crazy (imagine lots of people deprived of their much-needed caffeine), it was also nice to see that the people weren’t just after the coffee. They were also asking questions about the solar panels, which conveniently gave us the perfect opening for talking about climate change and clean energy. And I would like to think that they left with more than just a cup of coffee.

The Tour of the Fireflies Experience by Bernice Ejercito

For the first time in years, I actually did something to celebrate Earth Day. I joined the Tour of the Fireflies: a 50km bike ride to promote clean air and as a member of SolarGeneration, clean energy as well. A newbie of SolarGeneration, that was the first activity I took part of, I was even so excited I couldn’t sleep the night before. Nonetheless, I woke up early the next day to make it to the event on time. When I arrived at Tiendesitas, hundreds of people were already there for registration and, of course, SolarGeneration and Greenpeace groups were early too, to set up the Solar Café. On that day, hundreds of cups of coffee and stickers were given away thanks to volunteers, including me, who patiently distributed and brewed coffee using the solar powered coffee brewer.

About an hour later the actual bike ride began. I think almost a million people participated in this event and roads were actually packed full of them [bikers]. The tour itself was exhausting and the heat was deadly but thanks to my bike buddies Mac and Maricar [GPSEA Philippines volunteers], I eventually made it to the finish line.

Back in Tiendesitas, members of SolarGeneration [Manila] were continuously having petitions signed to promote clean energy [for ADB to stop funding coal projects]. What’s amazing about this is that people from all ages actually get together to fight for a common goal like RG [fellow SG Manila member] who is only 15 and what’s great about it is that the youth seem to be getting more and more aware and involved with issues regarding the environment. Tired and exhausted, I sat down to lunch with my fellow SolarGeneration and Greenpeace volunteers and realized that despite the heat, the exhausting bike ride, and all the hard work put into the coffee and petitions, it was worth it because I got to meet new people, had so much fun and was even able to help save the earth in my own little way.