St Peter's Preschool has launched a crowdfunding campaign to install solar panels

The school hopes to raise $8000 to install eleven solar panels on the roof of the building. 

St Peter’s Preschool director Jane Schutz said the initiative aimed to improve financial viability and educate children on sustainability from an early age.

“We're open all day so we have to use heating and cooling, especially in winter, so we were looking at how we could make that more cost efficient,” she said.

“We were also looking at our philosophy, our philosophy is to be as sustainable as possible and we wanted to bring that sustainability into everyday life for the children.”

The preschool has it’s own vegetable garden, compost heap and rainwater tank.

The solar panels would save approximately $1000 in electricity costs per year.

The preschool has enlisted New England Solar Energy for the job.

New England Solar Energy manager Cameron Dalgleish said the solar panels came with a monitoring app that allowed people to track their use.

“They can see how much power is being saved by solar energy and at the same time monitor how much power is being saved by the sun,” he said.

Ms Schutz said the school was very excited to teach the children how to use the app.

“That’s another benefit of having the solar power is that they will have these apps that we can use with the children to look at how much power we’re actually generating with our solar panels, how much power we actually use,” she said.

“It’s their future, so it’s about taking those sustainable practices with them, talking to their families and looking at it as a generational thing to make sustainability a part of their everyday life.

“They’ll see the benefits of it and hopefully learn to adopt those practices later in life.”

Crowdfunding was chosen because it allowed the preschool to connect with like-minded individuals in the community that want to support sustainable energy.

Ms Schutz said at least 1000 families will benefit from the solar panels.

“The crowdfunding was a way that we could perhaps look at the wider community, not just our families,” she said.

“We’re looking for people who are sustainability conscious and those that want to look out for future generations.”

Armidale Regional Council has already donated $1000 to the cause that will act as seed funding for the project.

To make a donation visit www.generosity.com/community-fundraising/solar-panels-for-st-peter-s-preschool