Community Biomass Energy is a grassroots effort to develop homegrown renewable energy from local biomass. It was launched in 2009 by its steering committee who share a common vision of a sustainable system that can provide multiple benefits across the community. They are sharing this vision in a series of meetings which aim to engage the public and draw others into the effort. The most ambitious part of the project is to build a manufacturing plant that will use locally sourced wood and grass feedstocks to produce fuel pellets and other products for sale in the local market. The plant is essential to the economic feasibility of the system because it converts low-value raw feedstocks into value added products. CBE hopes to validate a model of distributed biomass energy utilization in which modest sized plants link local sources and markets; growth is by replication rather than centralization.