When two Montana Conservation Corps (MCC) AmeriCorps members finished their work on the drafty trailer home of a Billings, Montana, senior, the owner commented:  “This is like Christmas for us low income residents.”  

These two AmeriCorps members had just finished installing low cost home weatherization measures as part of Montana Governor Schweitzer’s “Warm Hearts Warm Homes” initiative. With clear plastic stretched over windows and weather-stripping around doors, and a new wool blanket on her bed, this woman would be a little warmer this Montana winter.  Insulation around her hot water heater and energy-efficient CFL lightbulbs would help stretch her limited income for other necessities. 

In 2005 when energy costs spiked in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Governor Schweitzer expressed his concerns: “The upcoming winter season with the significant increase in the costs of energy is rapidly approaching a crisis for many of our less fortunate neighbors.”  In anticipation of unprecedented demands on the state’s Low Income Energy Assistance Program (LIEAP), Schweitzer called upon MCC to help provide low or no cost weatherization solutions.  Within weeks, dozens of members were trained and deployed to install simple winterization measures in over 600 homes in communities across the state, including Montana’s seven Indian Reservations.

Realizing the efficiencies of working with MCC and its motivated and highly trainable AmeriCorps members, the Department of Public Health and Human Services and the Governor’s Office of Community Service made “Warm Hearts Warm Homes” an integral part of their annual energy assistance programs. Every year, 240 MCC AmeriCorps members fan out across the state in October to install low cost measures and provide education to help low income homeowners stay warmer and save on energy costs. 

Training is coordinated with the Montana Weatherization Training Center, a program of the Montana State University Extension Service, and Montana’s eleven community action agencies help coordinate visits in rural communities.

In 2010, MCC AmeriCorps members provided weatherization assistance in 1,502 homes. This annual effort nearly doubles the number of households receiving weatherization help through the State’s federally-subsidized LIEAP weatherization program. Since 2005, over 8,200 homes have been improved for nearly twenty-thousand senior citizens and low income families.  The 7,550 compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFL) installed in 2010 will provide an estimated lifecycle saving of $226,000.  

Montana’s Warm Hearts Warm Homes model of involving AmeriCorps members in low cost weatherization has been widely replicated.  Colorado launched a multi-corps initiative in 2007. Minnesota Conservation Corps deployed its first Clean Energy crews in 2009. The success of Montana’s program inspired the focus on “clean energy” in the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act, and is strongly reflected in the CNCS’s strategic priorities for environmental stewardship.

Warm Hearts Warm Homes remains “like Christmas” for Montana’s most vulnerable residents. Wrote one beneficiary of an MCC weatherization visit last fall: “The young crew was just terrific. They even took off their shoes so they wouldn’t track up the floors. The house is warmer now and everything they did is a big help and improvement. Thank you very much.”