In these challenging times, we believe friendship and community are more important than ever. We’ve all received emails reminding us of the importance of washing hands, maintaining social distancing, disinfecting surfaces – which we agree is incredibly important. But we at Go Smart Solar wanted to do something more.

When Robert and Jason founded Go Smart Solar in 2015 here in San Antonio, they adopted the 1% Challenge where we give 1% of the profit back to the community through charitable donations and other projects. In the last few years we’ve installed solar on schools, churches and nonprofits in San Antonio as part of our 1% pledge. Due to the impact of COVID-19 on the local restaurants near our office downtown, Go Smart Solar is using our 1% Program in 2020 to help a neighbor close to us.

Pinch Boil House, also a Venture for America fellow, is a restaurant of Southeast Asian-inspired seafood, street food and beer. The restaurant encourages communal dining with its family-style tables which is a great way for families and friends to enjoy food deeply rooted in Asian culture. We regularly hold lunch staff meetings in their dining room and have become good friends with their team. In fact, we wouldn’t be surprised if our software engineer wins for most Dirty Birds consumed from the Pinch menu.

Like many other locally owned businesses across the US and the world, the impact of COVID-19 has devastated Pinch. Out of necessity, they temporarily closed their doors on Friday March 27, 2020 with plans to reopen when the community restarts. Like many San Antonio neighbors and business owners, the Go Smart Solar team was looking for ways to help.

Our solution? Let’s “adopt” the Pinch staff by buying enough gift cards to cover staff salaries during the temporary closing to preserve their paychecks and prevent layoffs. We don’t know what the long term looks like during these challenging times but we certainly can help in the short term. We’ve purchased hundreds of gift cards to give to our customers who are currently part of the Big Sun Community Solar program, a community solar program we launched with CPS Energy.

This is one way to show appreciation to our customers and keep the Pinch moving forward during these challenging times. If you need any recommendations on what to order, we got you!

We hope you are staying safe and healthy.

