PHOENIX — Sara Bendok, a sophomore at Phoenix Country Day School, has loved to garden her whole life.
She volunteers at Spaces of Opportunity, a 19-acre urban farm that promotes healthy food choices while allowing low-income individuals to grow and sell their produce, located in south Phoenix.
While volunteering, she saw how much effort and hard work the farmers put in and at the same time, the struggle with worsening environmental conditions and decreasing crop yield.
“I knew I had to make a difference because if you don’t do something, nobody around you is going to try and make that change,” said Bendok, President and Founder of Growing Green.
What if she could improve working conditions and crop growth, and do it sustainably?
She created a 501(c)(3) nonprofit called “Growing Green” to help fund and implement eco-friendly technologies at the farm.
After raising money and collaborating with local partners, the first step of her project was installed in June of 2023 and the second phase was just put in in January of this year.
“This is our 4.8-kilowatt-hour agrivoltaic system. It will help reduce the electric bill here by 40% each year and it will decrease carbon emission by 16,000 pounds each year as well,” said Bendok.
Agrivoltaics is the co-location of solar and agriculture which allows farmers to harvest the sun twice: once with the solar panels as they produce clean, renewable energy, and again by growing crops under and around the panels.
“I hope that other farmers on larger farms, and around the U.S. and Arizona, I hope they see some sort of benefit with agrivoltaic so they can start adopting it,” said Bendok.
Learn more about the project and how it's positively impacting our planet in the video player above.
ABC15 Meteorologist Ashlee DeMartino has been covering sustainability efforts around the Valley. See more of that coverage below or head to our Impact Earth section.
