For over four hours Saturday, volunteers with Indiana Solar for All mounted solar panels on the roof of a green bungalow in the Trail View neighborhood.
Organizers played music from a sun-themed playlist, with songs like Nick Drake’s “Saturday Sun” and Leon Bridges’s “River.” Other attendees set up a potluck in a blue canopy tent.
With the final panel connected, ISFA completed its 50th solar panel installation since it was founded in 2018. Volunteers and neighbors celebrated with a potluck.
ISFA uses grant money and donations to install rooftop solar energy for Bloomington homes at a reduced cost.
As utility companies raise rates in Indiana and across the nation, ISFA Treasurer Anne Hedin said access to solar panels can make a huge difference for homeowners.
“Every penny that they save through having solar on their roofs is money that they can invest in their children’s education, in medicine, in various other opportunities and necessities,” Hedin said.
The home they worked on Saturday belonged to Amy Fender, who said she wanted to rely on renewable energy and reduce her dependency on energy from coal.
Fender is the ninth homeowner in the Trail View neighborhood to install solar panels through ISFA. By signing up for solar panels, Fender and her neighbors agreed to volunteer for future projects.
Itzel Guevara, who lives down the block, sat with some friends on lawn chairs behind the canopy tent. She said ISFA already installed panels on her house, and she’s paying off her volunteer hours by cooking food for the potlucks.
She and Fender both signed up for the program because of their neighbors. Many of Fender’s neighbors helped build each other’s homes through Habitat for Humanity of Monroe County, which Fender said strengthened their sense of community.
“We are definitely more, as neighbors, more connected than other neighborhoods that I have seen,” Fender said. “All of the kids come out and play together.”
As Guevara watched the potluck from her lawn chair, two young girls played with Fender’s pet tortoise, Lavender, in the grass. They live down the block, in a house that is scheduled to get solar panels installed by ISFA later this fall.
Darrell Boggess attended the potluck with his wife, who works on ISFA’s steering committee. Boggess lives in Park Ridge East, where he installed solar panels in 2011. Now, three other homes within sight of his house also have rooftop panels. He said interest in solar panels tends to spread across neighborhoods after one house gets them.
“It's kind of contagious,” Boggess said. “What happens is, people see – like right here in this neighborhood – and they talk to people who have solar panels and ask about it, they learn about it. And once you have awareness and knowledge, that leads to action.”
Later that afternoon, organizers opened the floor for audience members, and Boggess was the first to speak. He said the economics of solar energy are changing.
Federal tax incentives established in 2022, which gave homeowners up to 30% off expenses including installations and equipment for installing solar panels, will expire Dec. 31, according to the One Big Beautiful Bill passed in July.
Boggess said homeowners should try to install before the end of the year to get tax credits while they’re still available. But even after those credits expire, Boggess said “the sky is really not falling” for rooftop solar panels, which still cost a fraction of what Boggess paid in 2011.
Hedin said that for homeowners and ISFA volunteers, installing solar is a way for people to come together for a common good.
“It’s a statement of belief in the future,” Hedin said. “In the future of those families, in the future of a livable climate.”
CORRECTION: This story has been updated to reflect the correct spelling of Darrell Boggess’s name.
CORRECTION: This story has been updated to reflect the correct spelling of Itzel Guevara's name.
