Hundreds of customers come to the Middleboro G&E administrative office each week to make a payment, signup for service or just to say hello. For this year’s celebration of public ownership, we set up a lobby display that helped them see the light about the newest LED light bulb. We offered an LED bulb exchange, trading one LED bulb for one incandescent bulb used in their homes. We doubled our entries for another raffle this year for two canvas gift bags filled with energy and water saving tools and we handed out hundreds of LED flashlights, jar grippers and pens. Throughout the week, the MEAM-sponsored local video Neighbors Helping Neighbors, celebrating public utility ownership, played in the lobby.

We had a variety of lamps lit by the virtual evolution of bulbs starting with incandescent, curly CFLs, encapsulated CFLs and a variety of LEDs. Two lamps were plugged into a meter that clearly showed kwh spin for Mr. Edison’s original bulb versus almost indiscernible motion of the dial for the LED equivalent. For the more tactile customers, our 3-lamp stand gave them a chance to feel the heat on the metal bulb shades generated by the differing bulbs, from too-hot-to touch 60-watt to the 11-watt barely warm. A simple mason jar lamp with a clip-on lampshade showed how easily the new LED bulb would fit a standard old-fashioned lamp.

We logged each exchange by customer and address, taking one incandescent bulb and giving one Phillips 11 watt Warm Whit LED bulb per household. Most customers knew about the exchange from our ad and press release and came in bearing a bulb. Some only learned of the exchange when paying their bill and they came back with a bulb. Those who couldn’t make it back but wanted to participate or knew of others were given a rebate form for a $5 credit on their bill when they buy their own Energy Star certified LED. In all, 78 bulbs were exchanged and another 25 rebate slips are in circulation. We now have an impressive variety of clunkier incandescent bulbs for a future historic display.

The prizes were a pair of very fine LandsEnd canvas garden tote bags stuffed with high and low tech devices to save energy and water (saving water is on everyone’s mind due to the impending increase in wastewater costs), including a programmable watering timer, a solar garden spotlight and, of course, an LED bulb. Over 100 customers took the time to fill out a raffle entry card after realizing it was a free give-away. This is double the number of entries for last year’s raffle. It helped that we reminded them that, since there were two identical prizes up for grabs, the odds were far better than a $2 bet on any state lottery. We drew 2 winners after our doors closed on Friday at 5 p.m. Both winners were from Middleboro this year. (Rachel Brown of Pearl St. and Rose May of Thomas St.) By taking these entries, we captured dozens of email addresses for potential use with the Code Red system and phone numbers that need updating.