Some Albert Lea High School students are working to save energy and help out a local food shelf all at the same time.

Alix Kermes is organizing other students to help with Project “Green” Light. Kermes hopes to go into the energy conservation field after high school and wanted to do a project. She partnered with Freeborn-Mower Cooperative Services, who are donating 4,000 fluorescent light bulbs to Freeborn and Mower counties for the project.

Kermes, along with other high schoolers Rachel Jensen and Macy Paul, and eighth-grader Sage Kermes, have organized local 4-H groups who will help distribute the bulbs. A collection day is planned for June 25 where the students will trade the energy-efficient light bulbs for an old bulb or a canned food item.

“We’re conserving energy, saving money, recycling, educating the public and giving back to local food shelves,” Kermes said.

If every American home replaced one 60-watt incandescent bulb with a 14-watt fluorescent lightbulb, 41 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions would be saved from power plants. Also, each bulb saves a family $46 over the lifetime of the bulb. It is their goal to give out 4,000 bulbs. That’s $184,000 in savings, according to a brochure the club is using to help promote Project “Green” Light.

“We just wanted to help two causes and benefit our community,” Paul said. “We hope people will come out and get those lightbulbs.”

Kermes said she’s grown up being conscious of energy efficiency and hopes to someday create curriculum to teach students about how to conserve energy is all areas of life.

“We don’t have anything like that in our schools today,” Kermes said.