After an innovation roundtable at Charlottesville’s Mikro Systems, Senator Warner traveled to Waynesboro to get a look at the largest thermal solar panel installation project in Virginia at the local YMCA.

A thunderstorm arrived just as we did, so Senator Warner wasn’t able to climb onto the roof to see the progress of this installation project, which is expected to save the Y about $13,000 a year in lower energy costs. However, Senator Warner discussed the project with the two founders of Sigora Solar, a local company that designed and is installing the panels, and members of the YMCA board and staff.

"This is a win-win-win,” Senator Warner said. “Sigora’s efforts are creating local jobs, the YMCA is benefitting from cost-saving cleaner energy, and the local commitment to this project says great things about the community support for the Y.”

We had an ulterior motive for traveling to the Waynesboro YMCA:  it happened to be Read Across America Day, which coincides with Dr. Seuss’s birthday. So Senator Warner read Green Eggs and Ham to pre-kindergarten students: 

“Do you know what this story is about?” he asked the preschoolers, one of whom responded, matter of factly, “Green eggs and ham.”

“Well, yes, it’s about green eggs and ham. It’s also about the fact that sometimes when your mom or your dad gives you some food, and you say, I don’t want to like that, I don’t want to try that, you should try it, because sometimes it might be good,” Warner said.

And now the message for the rest of us.

“Green Eggs and Ham meant that sometimes you’ve got to try stuff that at first you think you might not like. Maybe I can take Green Eggs and Ham back with me to Washington and try to see if we can get the Democrats to try some of the Republican ideas, and the Republicans to try some of the Democrat ideas, and just like Dr. Seuss wrote in Green Eggs and Ham, they might actually find that they like the other guys’ ideas,” Warner said.