Name: Rachel Vullo
Degree: Political Science and Cultural Studies
Position: Resource Development Intern

My first week at the Building Energy Exchange began with a whirlwind of outreach, social media postings, emailing, and promotion for the organization’s annual social media campaign, Daylight Hour. My organizational skills went into overdrive compiling lists of hundreds of participants and watching as they promoted the campaign over social media.

The Daylight Hour campaign has taught me valuable lessons on successfully communicating with a wide range of businesses from huge corporations to small offices with a handful of employees such as BE-Ex. As more of the responsibility for handling social media platforms was allotted to me, I have learned the importance of internet outreach and engagement. The number of offices who signed up based on a tweet they saw or a post on LinkedIn was astounding.

Now that Daylight Hour is over and we have announced our award winners, it’s great to see the excitement from our participants. Many of the offices have decided to extend Daylight Hour over the summer and continuously promote energy savings. As an intern, I value seeing the lasting impact that the campaign has had.

Daylight Hour 2017 encompassed over 100 million square feet of office space (20 million square feet more than last year) and reached more than 10 million people via social media. Not only did this year increase awareness of the campaign but we were honored by the positive feedback we received from participants. In just one hour, we saved enough energy to power 9,400 homes for a day. I am honored to have been a part of making such an impact.