Success of the first edition of the program to support local initiatives "Choczewo. Wind Powered Commune"

45 projects with a total value of PLN 1 million were implemented in the first edition of the program "Choczewo. Wind Powered Commune". The initiative created for the inhabitants of the municipality of Choczewo (Pomeranian voivodeship) is the idea of investors of offshore wind farms: Baltic Power (PKN ORLEN and Northland Power), PGE Baltica and Ørsted, and Ocean Winds implementing offshore investments in the Polish part of the Baltic Sea. The aim of the initiative is to support ideas put forward by the local community where the infrastructure necessary to bring power from offshore wind farms to land is being developed.

Residents to decide

"Choczewo. Wind Powered Commune" is a program aimed at residents from the beginning, planned in such a way as to activate the local community and strengthen its social capital, by subsidizing initiatives submitted and indicated as important by the inhabitants themselves. It is a joint venture of investors who are pursuing investments in offshore wind farms. The program is implemented through direct cooperation with the local community, from diagnosing needs, describing them and looking for the best ways to implement them. Residents themselves identified initiatives that they believe should receive financial support and move from the concept stage to the implementation stage.

"Choczewo. Wind Powered Commune" is a valuable initiative. The program, thanks to the involvement of various social groups and residents from different villages and hamlets, contributes to the activation of the municipal community. At the same time, it increases everyone's awareness of wind energy," emphasizes Wieslaw Gebka, head of Choczewo Commune.

From idea to project

In the first stage of creating the Program, the team responsible for implementation held close to 100 meetings with residents of the municipality. These included individual interviews, workshops and research walks, the main purpose of which was to diagnose the most important needs of the community, but also to inspire concern for the immediate environment. The result of the activities carried out with residents was, among other things, the selection of thematic areas within which offshore wind farm investors supported specific projects.

- This is an initiative that responds to the real needs of residents. Projects funded under the Program meet the expectations of the local community, reported directly by our neighbors. A huge advantage of this initiative is the process of broad consultation - Krzysztof Łasiński, Chairman of the Choczewo Commune Council

Many valuable initiatives

One of the projects that received funding was an initiative titled "From Grandma's Plate." It assumed the publication of a cookbook containing recipes brought to the Choczewo area with the settlement after the end of World War II. Residents who arrived in the area of today's Choczewo commune often brought with them very different cultural traditions. Therefore, the initiators of the project wanted to save the memory of culinary customs that shaped the identity of families in previous generations.

The program also allowed the implementation of initiatives involving the promotion of sports and active lifestyles. A series of volleyball tournaments open to all residents was held in the Choczewo municipality: on the occasion of Independence Day, the Santa Claus Tournament, the New Year Tournament and the Valentine's Day Tournament.

We proposed three initiatives: "We Live Ecologically," "We Are Fair play," and "Green Wind." Thanks to funding from the Program, we carried out projects aimed at raising the environmental awareness of our school's students, promoting physical activity and also inspiring them to care more about the environment. We organized a series of workshops for students, including a trip to Warsaw's Copernicus Science Center, where our students were able to learn more about the principles of sustainable development in practice," emphasized Róża Majchrzak, director of the School and Kindergarten Complex in Ciekocin.

Among the projects was an initiative focusing on the development of the community's residents from the youngest to seniors, thus promoting intergenerational integration. The Carpe Diem Semper Cultural and Social Association implemented a project called Multigenerational Mobile University. As part of the initiative, a number of educational and integration events were organized. Among others, a Culinary Street Picnic and a Baltic Sea Nordic Walking March were held.

Funding for 45 projects

Support under the program has been received by, among others, all the Choczewo commune's villages, associations acting on behalf of the commune's residents or individual organizational units of the commune.

Preparations are currently underway to launch the second edition of the program "Choczewo. Wind Powered Commune". It will be preceded by a detailed evaluation of the implementation of the Program in 2022. investors ensure that, as was the case with the 1st edition of the Program, the opinion of residents will be most important in the final selection of projects for implementation.

Baltic Power is a project that from the beginning of its implementation has placed special focus on a policy of sustainable development. In addition to environmental protection and corporate governance, social responsibility defines the approach of our company and its shareholders to the implementation of modern energy investments. The Baltic Power farm will ultimately power more than 1.5 million households in Poland, with Choczewo as the place from where the energy will go to the grid. We consider the understanding and support of residents as an element of responsible, good-neighborly relations," stresses Jarosław Broda, Member of the Board of Baltic Power.

The Wind Powered Commune program is related to important investments in the offshore wind farm sector for the Polish energy sector. It is intended to draw the attention of local communities to the role of investments carried out in the Choczewo commune in the process of effective energy transformation of our country. It allows information on offshore wind farm projects to reach local leaders and informal groups, such as farmer's wives' association, volunteer fire departments, or local rural communities.

For more informations please visit: www.gmina-napedzana-wiatrem.pl