Holiday Safety Leads to a “Greener” Season

This holiday season, make small changes that will increase your home’s safety, lower your utility bills, and conserve energy. You will be creating a safer home while saving money on your energy bills and you will be helping the environment by reducing your carbon footprint. North Carolina Cooperative Extension’s
E-Conservation Program has many energy saving suggestions to help North Carolina consumers reduce energy use and increase energy efficiency in the home.

LED Lighting:

LEDs are Safer:
Unlike traditional incandescent Christmas lights, LED lights do not get hot – a big plus if you will be using them on a real tree; and beneficial for any use. Because LED holiday lights are cool to the touch, replacing your old strings of 7-watt bulbs with LED lights can decrease the chances of home fires.

LEDs are More Energy Efficient:
LEDs use 90% less electricity than regular Christmas lights, saving you money on your holiday utility bills, and reducing your impact on the environment.

LEDs Last Longer:
LED lights last up to 100,000 hours. Assuming you use your Christmas lights five hours a day between Thanksgiving and New Year’s, that’s only 200 hours of use each year! How’s that for long-lasting?

LEDs are More Durable:
Since LEDs use light emitting diodes (not incandescence) to produce light, there are no filaments to have burn out; and thus, no bulbs to replace. Just plug in your Christmas lights, and they’re ready for use. Also, since the bulbs are plastic, rather than glass, there’s less chance of breaking lights while you’re stringing them up, and less time spent fussing over how they’re packed up after the holidays. Just toss them in a box, and forget about them until next year.

LEDs Come in a Variety of Styles:
Big bulbs, small bulbs, colored bulbs, white bulbs—LED Christmas lights come in a wide variety of styles – so there’s truly something for everyone. You can even find snowflake-shaped lights, rope lights and net lights.

LEDs are Inexpensive:Strands of indoor/outdoor lights can be purchased from big-box retailers for as little as $9.99 a strand.


For more energy saving tips, go to E-Conservation.net. The E-Conservation Program was created to inform and educate North Carolina consumers about ways to both reduce energy use and increase energy efficiency in the home. This project is designed to reach and teach consumers to be proactive in reducing their home energy consumption and in saving money through no-and low-cost energy efficiency measures, behavioral changes and home retrofits.

Military Extension Internship

A new initiative and partnership between the Cooperative Extension System and the Department of Defense has provided the funding for a national, military childcare/youth development internship program. Through this initiative, students and recent graduates will have the opportunity to develop professional skills in childcare and youth development through practical work experience with military children, youth, and families. Interns’ compensation will include travel to and from the internship site and housing for the duration of the placement. Interns will be placed on military installations across the United States.

The Military Extension Internship Program will continue to accept applications for its inaugural term through December 7th for placements beginning January 11, 2010. More information and application materials can be found at www.extension.purdue.edu/military, and we are happy to answer any questions you may have.

Application materials for Summer 2010 internships will be available after December 21st.

Family Fun Volunteers Contest (Deadline: November 30)

Does your family volunteer together? FamilyFun wants to hear about what it is you do -- and why! Tell FamilyFun about your family's commitment to service and your family (or nominee) could win up to $5,000 to donate to the charity of your choice! With judging help from HandsOn Network, FamilyFun magazine and Disney are giving away four grand prizes of $5,000 and five first-place prizes of $500 to each winner's favorite charity. All families participating in the contest will receive a FamilyFun Volunteers' certificate. The contest ends November 30, 2009.

For more information check out this website.

The November Clover News is now available. Click here to find out all the new and exciting things going on. We apologize for the delay in getting out your mailed copy, we had some issues with postage. It is in the mail and you should be receiving it in the next couple of days. Be sure to pay attention to registration deadlines. If you have questions, please let us know at 336-372-5597 or amy_lucas@ncsu.edu