Make Green Planet Heroes a Reality

 After I became trained as a home energy auditor a few years ago, I found that one problem prevailed everywhere: for most people, no matter how much they need or want to save energy, the cost of home energy improvements was more than they could afford.  People are worried about the increasing costs of home heating and cooling, they feel bad about the extra they're contributing to global warming, and they feel helpless to do anything about it.

A bit over a year ago, I started the process of learning to code in Ruby on Rails, because I wanted to create a tool people could use to overcome the biggest hurdle to energy efficiency and sustainable energy: the up front cost.

I took a number of classes to learn how to determine what would be needed to make such a site successful, and began the bootstrapping process. Here's the current state of the site: Green Planet Heroes

Then I found the best tool for handling the commerce side of things, which is based on Kickstarter's payments API. I discovered that I needed a great deal more understanding of exactly what I was doing with the coding in order to integrate that tool. I signed up for RailsBridge Boston and learned a bit more of what I need.

I took a look, but at the time, it a ruby coding bootcamp entirely out of reach, financially. So, I decided to put things on hold while I took random bits of free time I could muster to read books, and do tutorials. I made some incremental progress, took some classes on things like business model development, gamification, and more.

Recently, we reached a point at which it was (barely) possible for me to consider signing up for a boot camp. I hemmed and hawed for a couple of weeks, because its a LOT of money, but finally, I applied. I went through their application process, which includes doing coding exercises, plus two interviews. Things were looking great!

I was making plans, and thinking that if I got in, I could (a) get Green Planet Heroes (GPH) off the ground, and (b) do some coding on the side to earn money to help my kids with their college plans.

Friday, my husband was laid off ... two hours before I received the acceptance letter from the first boot camp. So, I got in, but now I can't go.

I was SOOOOO close!

Finding a way to make it possible for ordinary people to be able to afford to save energy, and to reduce the rate of climate change has been gnawing at me for years. I want to give people a means of raising that money - one where their fundraising won't get lost in a sea of requests of a whole different type. (Ironic I'm crowdfunding to gain the skills I need to build a crowdfunding platform, eh?)

So, in the end, I'm hoping you might be willing to invest a bit in me, so I can help others invest in a better future, and, with luck help my kids achieve their dreams, too. It's a lot to ask, and I'll be unbelievably grateful to anyone who donates any amount.