Every year, during the first full week of October, public power utilities across the country celebrate Public Power Week to highlight the benefits of community-owned electricity providers, such as lower rates, better service reliability, cleaner energy, and more community oversight. It’s during this time that we take a moment to celebrate the impact and work of San Francisco’s public power utility: Hetch Hetchy Power.

“You know how when you’re a kid, you kind of hate where you come from? Not me. It’s actually something I have always been very proud of,” said Jorge Torres. “I’m from Kern County, where Cesar Chavez organized the Delano Grape Worker Strike,” Torres said about the famous strike that began in 1965 when farm workers refused to work picking grapes near Bakersfield, California