Sunco Cares Charitable Contribution Q3 2020

Customers like you participate in our Sunco Cares program through your purchases of Sunco Lighting products when Sunco Lighting donates to charitable organizations quarterly. This helps us give back to the community and the environment. It is part of our mission as a company and is also a value our employees embrace.

Our recent donations for the third quarter of 2020 benefited these worthy conservation organizations worldwide:

Trees for the Future: Planting Trees Changes Lives

Mission: To improve the livelihoods of impoverished farmers by revitalizing degraded lands.

Trees for the Future recently published their 2020 Impact Report. In it, they mentioned several milestones they have achieved:

• Total Forest Gardens Planted: 19,095
• Total People Helped: 152,403
• Total Trees Planted: 191 million
• Total Acres Restored: 26,786

Trees for the Future allows farmers to plant themselves out of hunger and poverty, while they grow sustainable foods in their own backyards. As fans of sustainability at Sunco, we were also thrilled to note that they made a switch in 2020 from plastic to biodegradable tree sacks. Here is some more detail on what Trees for the Future is striving to achieve.

Forest gardens are more beneficial than conventional agriculture for vulnerable communities. Supporting these communities – across five countries in Sub-Saharan Africa – provides a big impact to families so they can grow and manage Forest Gardens. In addition, during the current COVID-19 pandemic, forest gardens help provide food access in a family’s backyard. This is especially important to increase food security, increase nutrition, and increase income in the communities helped by Trees for the Future.

Trees for the Future identifies a group of farmers – around 300 families at a time – who have both a need and a high likelihood of success. Trees for the Future then empowers these communities to succeed through education to allow the farmers to sustainably revitalize their land and diversify the produce grown on it to return nutrients back to the soil. The use of trees helps protect, diversify, and eventually optimize their crop land. The farmers provide the land, labor and water, along with entrepreneurial determination, all while inspiring a sense of community ownership.

Donations create a direct impact on the land and lives of farming people who need assistance to succeed. By helping Trees for the Future plant trees, you can give families the ability to transition from unsustainable farming techniques to a Forest Garden system. You also help them reach the goal of planting 1 million people out of poverty by planting 125,000 Forest Gardens by 2025.
Your donation not only sustains and empowers the people in these communities, but also changes their lives forever. So be the good and turn your compassion into action.

Donate Today to Trees for the Future.

Let There Be Light International: Keep the Light Shining

Mission: To combat energy poverty in vulnerable off-grid communities and to fight global climate change through the donation of safe solar lights to vulnerable, vetted individuals and communities in sub-Saharan Africa.

Although electricity is accessible and frequently used by many of us, 1 billion people do not have access to electricity. Safe lighting is not available in Africa to around 600 million people in their home, schools, health care centers, or along well-traveled roads. This means that businesses must shut down when the sun sets. People then go to a dark home. At home with their families, they utilize dangerous or polluting light options after dark, such as kerosene. This energy poverty is what Let There Be Light International strives to eradicate in creative ways.

Access to solar energy helps create productive and safer lives for communities in sub-Saharan Africa. Some of the work of Let There Be Light International benefits health clinics that were off the grid and now utilize clean, solar-electrified energy. These clinics remain open at night for emergencies, as well as pre- and post-natal care. They also provide thousands of portable, solar lights to families who can then work on side businesses at home, safely read, and their children can safely study at night.

During COVID-19 lockdowns in 2020, schools in these regions have been closed. Children have been required to study at home. Since parents still have to perform their own chores and routines, the children who are used to being at school during the day often end up working on homework at night and helping perform other tasks during the day. This delay to evening studying is possible with electricity, but without solar lighting, that studying must be done with polluting and often dangerous lights or not at all. With reduced income for some families during this pandemic, kerosene and other fuels are too expensive to purchase. Using solar lights provided by Light there Be Light International, these children are able to study safely with their families. The funds that previously went to light can be used in other ways for household expenses.

Let There be Light International combats poverty itself and energy poverty with the power of the sun. This charity is paving a path towards a more sustainable future for people in need. Why not become a part of that?

Donate Today to Let There Be Light International.

City Plants: Grow a Greener Los Angeles

Mission: To grow a greener future for Los Angeles by engaging Angelenos to plant and care for trees throughout the city.

City Plants continues to offer their free tree adoptions to green Los Angeles, even during the Safer at Home orders in place during the COVID-19 pandemic. Be proactive and plant a tree through their virtual adoption program, which brings the trees straight to you in association with the L.A. Department of Water and Power.

City Plants partners with multiple non-profit organizations to plant shade trees throughout L.A. to promote green jobs and advocate for a sustainable Los Angeles. City Plants delivers up to seven water-efficient yard trees for private property or they will plant the trees in the public parkway (between the sidewalk and the street) for homes, businesses, apartments, or schools who qualify for their program.

Planting trees benefits your energy efficiency. If planted to the west and east of a building, trees will provide shade during the hottest parts of the day. That cools the building and lessens the need for air conditioning. Less A/C use will save energy and money on your electricity bill. Trees are also a great investment as they become more effective at saving energy with age. Using less energy as individuals can help reduce the need to generate more energy, which helps combat climate change. If enough people reduce their energy intake, the savings add up.

You can help transform Los Angeles in a more livable and sustainable city, one tree at a time. If you are a resident of the City of Los Angeles, you are eligible to adopt a tree. Free trees are adopted on a first come, first-served basis so register to adopt a free tree for your home or your neighborhood.

Already have trees, but want to do something proactive for your community?

Donate Today to help grow the future L.A. deserves.

Jewish National Fund: Turning the Desert into a Vibrant, Green Oasis

The Jewish National Fund (JNF) has been building and connecting to the land since 1901. Their visionary campaign to plant trees, source water solutions, and fund agricultural research helps boost their goal of a vibrant oasis in place of a desert.

Trees and greenery near a city can provide much needed benefits to the community and the environment. JNF foresters work on environmental soundness while they also clean, prune, plant and allow for a natural and healthy forest. There are also fire and rescue services sponsored by the JNF in Israel. In addition, JNF addresses soil conservation, the development of agricultural infrastructure, and combating desertification.

The National Jewish Fund forests are home to thousands of animals and birds, along with cypress trees, Atlantic cedar, almond, and the mighty oak. The NJF have created over 250,000 acres of greenery to beautify the land and provide the green lungs of cities and towns across Israel. Sunco Lighting donated towards their tree planting efforts and you can, too.

Plant trees to honor someone you love.

Donate Today to the JNF

Want to help Sunco promote a more sustainable future? Choose to donate directly to support green initiatives at home and abroad like the ones above or volunteer your time on the local level to improve your world.

Closer to home, you can also use solar lighting to reduce your landscape lighting costs and employ the power of the sun in your own yard or garden.