HOUGHTON – The Houghton Energy Efficiency Team will kick off its 2016 Winterization Blitz on Saturday, when a team of volunteers from River Valley Bank will arm themselves with caulk guns and spray foam to winterize a Hubbell home.

HEET Energy Manager Melissa Davis said HEET will begin its blitz winterizing one home each weekend, but plans to pick up the pace as more volunteers and funds for materials become available, hopefully winterizing 156 homes by the end of the year.

Davis said HEET is still looking for more “worker bee” volunteers, as well as people interested in training to be lead volunteers for winterizations, but service organizations and other large groups of volunteers have committed to handling several homes. She’s also recently learned HEET could get two months of full-time help from a team of Americorps National Community Civilian Corps volunteers.

“If we can find a way to house them, they’ll give us eight to 12 people for two months,” Davis said. “If we just use them and do one house a day for six weeks, that would give us 30. If we can train them and send them out with others, we could divide them and get 60.”

Along with helping local residents in need save on their energy bills through the winterizations, HEET is competing on behalf of Houghton County for the $5 million Georgetown Energy Prize. The prize money will go to the competing community that does the most to reduce energy costs communitywide in 2015 and 2016.

To learn more about HEET, or if you’re interested in volunteering, go to energizehoughton.org.