Harvey, Irma, Maria… September has proven to be perhaps the worst month for North American hurricanes in recorded history. And it’s not over. In the aftermath of a storm, water, electricity, utilities, and transportation can all be affected, meaning potentially weeks of disruption, as is currently the case currently in Puerto Rico.
In the aftermath of Harvey’s impact, we decided we needed to do something and launched a hurricane relief fundraiser sale, giving part of the profits to charity. This promotion was successful and a significant sum was raised to support the effort of the American Red Cross, The Houston Food Bank, Global Giving, and Operation BBQ Relief.
Now a couple weeks later, with over 7 million without power in Florida alone from hurricane Irma and Hurricane Maria taking Puerto Rico off-line, we feel compelled to explore other options beyond financial support for these crises. With many products still in development, the sheer amount of human suffering close to home has made us reconsider our product development timeline and priorities as well as explore new partnerships to make a difference.
We are currently in the latter stages of development of a value-engineered model of our technology for emerging markets, but given the severity of our current situation, we are considering how we can take this design direction and modify it for first responders and disaster relief when hundreds of people must be fed. It will be 2018 before we complete this project, but with many friends and family personally affected in Houston and Florida, the GoSun Team will not soon forget.
We have also begun exploring new partnerships with some of America’s largest NGOs to find new avenues for bringing solar cooking into the conversation around emergency preparedness. We believe a solar stove can be an important part of any disaster kit and aim to make our technology as accessible as possible to reach as many as possible.
As our friends in Puerto Rico now go more than a week without electricity and little aid, and hurricanes expected only to increase in their severity in the coming years, we feel compelled to help using the unique opportunity we’ve been given. Stay tuned to see what GoSun has planned for 2018.