21-year-old Spring Creek Towers resident is learning to weatherize homes

Tuesday, June 15th, 2010

She can wield an insulation hose and blow insulation into a wall. Windows? She knows how to caulk and install. She’s seen the inside of an attic crawl space and lived to tell her friends.

She is 21-year-old Kahryl Fann, a long-time resident of Spring Creek Towers and a paid intern learning to weatherize houses and apartments, so that people can be warm in winter and cool in summer, lower their energy bills, and lessen the impact of the climate crisis.

“It’s something I want to do,” says Kahryl, interviewed one afternoon at Community Environmental Center (CEC) in Long Island City, where she is doing her internship. “Seeing how effective weatherization is, I want to help people save money and make sure they’re healthier.”

It’s an adventure, but Kahryl has always welcomed new experiences, beginning with her family’s move in 1999 to Spring Creek Towers. She happily has taken advantage of everything this enormous apartment complex offers: public elementary school and junior high school, a sports club and the shopping center, which she visits nearly every day (it’s a great source for pizza and Chinese food, not to mention a Radio Shack and an Associated Supermarket).

Indeed, despite Spring Creek’s size—46 buildings containing 5,881 apartments for nearly 15,000 people—Kahryl refers to her own area as “a small community.”

“It’s big,” she grins, “but like, my section, with the kids I know? It’s close-knit.”

So, undaunted by things new, when Kahryl learned last fall from her high-school counselor that Green City Force (GCF), which prepares young people for careers in the emerging green economy, was offering a 6-month training program…she decided to postpone college and explore it. “Because it was something I didn’t know about,” says Kahryl.

She impressed Green City Force interviewers with her commitment and focus, and aced the required T.A.B.E. Test (Test of Adult Basic Education). December 2009 found Kahryl going door-to-door in the East New York section of Brooklyn, informing homeowners about weatherization.

“We started by doing outreach,” says Kahryl, with the enthusiasm that characterizes this energetic young woman. “For about a month and a half we were knocking on doors, giving out flyers, making presentations. It was cold! And whoever was interested, whoever was eligible, we got them set up for weatherization—we were trained to teach them how to fill out the applications.”

Her training, co-led by Green City Force and Community Environmental Center, included classroom instruction in personal and career development, job readiness, and ecoliteracy—a field of knowledge involving the well-being of the earth. And a taste of the technical aspects of weatherization, with its focus on blowing cellulose insulation into walls and attic spaces, those perfect hiding places for the draughts that chill a household during the winter.

Now, as an intern at CEC, Kahryl is officially on track to be hired for a professional weatherization crew. She particularly likes installing windows, and her newly acquired knowledge comes tumbling out with a confidence that would please any mentor.

“You have to measure first,” she says, “because you don’t want a window that’s too big for the area, because if it’s too big, there’s no way. If it’s too small, you can put wood around it, to make it flush. So first you take out the old window—you take everything out and you vacuum the wood left behind. Once you have the new window that fits the space you put caulk around the perimeter, you put the window in, and then you take shims—little wood chips that help you level the window—and you put them around the sides. You level the window, caulk around it, add your molding, and after you have that, you caulk again.”

Installing windows is satisfying and even fun. Wriggling along a crawl space? Not so much. “That was major uncomfortable,” says Kahryl. “The space was really little and it had, like, studs coming out, and I had to maneuver myself. It looked like a maze. I don’t know how I got in and how I got out, but I did.”

Indeed, nothing seems to daunt Kahryl, not even getting up at 5:00 a.m. to be at CEC by 8:00 a.m. “Yeah, it’s a long commute,” she acknowledges, “but I do it.”

One of her most positive experiences so far involved a Brooklyn homeowner. Kahryl first met the woman last winter during the application process and subsequently during the “energy audit,” which tests a residence for draughts and carbon monoxide levels, and ascertains the need for energy efficient light bulbs and appliances. Then in May, Kahryl was on the crew that returned to the house for the two-week-long weatherization.

“The owner remembered me and everything, so that felt kind of good,” says Kahryl. “But also, I got to see the weatherization from start to finish, and that was great.”

Back at Spring Creek Towers, her friends have various reactions to Kahryl’s new job. “My female friends think that it’s construction,” she says. “They say, ‘Wow, you’re going to do that? You don’t seem like you would do that.’ My guy friends, they say, ‘That’s cool. You can do that? I can’t even do that.’ And that makes me feel good.”

She hopes that the internship will lead to full-time employment at CEC and then to an auditing position. Further into the future she would like to go to college and ultimately receive an engineering degree.

But right now? “I’m learning and I enjoy it,” says Kahryl. “All my life, little jobs I’ve had, nothing has really been ‘hands-on.’ So I like being able to use tools, really getting in there and doing things. I just like to learn things that I didn’t know before.”

CONTACT: Alexis Greene, 718-784-1444, ext. 156; agreene@cecenter.org

MORE ABOUT GREEN CITY FORCE

Kahryl Fann began her weatherization training at Green City Force (GCF), a NYC-based not-for-profit organization that combines job training and community service to foster environmentally healthy urban communities and also prepare young people for careers in the emerging green economy.

GCF works with unemployed urban youth ages 18 to 24 who have a high school diploma or GED and offers them the chance to be on the front lines in greening NYC: painting cool roofs, weatherizing low-income homes, and performing outreach block-by-city block to educate citizens about the Weatherization Assistance Program.

Participants commit to 6 months, full-time, with Green City Force. The program involves learning marketable skills while gaining hands-on experience, classroom training, entry-level certifications, support for job placement and follow-up, and stipends.

To learn more about GCF, call Danza Huey at 718-923-1400, ext. 287

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