Small Change Can Change Lives

The hol­i­day sea­son is final­ly here. Some call it the most won­der­ful sea­son of all. That’s because we asso­ciate it with fam­i­ly tra­di­tions and gath­er­ing with friends and loved ones. It’s a time of giv­ing and spread­ing joy.

But giv­ing back reminds me of the many good things we have right here in our com­mu­ni­ty and why it’s so impor­tant to spread the good as far as we can, espe­cial­ly to the most vul­ner­a­ble in our  local area. I’m also remind­ed of how won­der­ful our com­mu­ni­ty is and what a big impact we can have when we work togeth­er.

When you are a mem­ber of Coastal Elec­tric Coop­er­a­tive, you help us spread the good through­out the year. Through our Oper­a­tion Round Up pro­gram, your dona­tions help local fam­i­lies and  indi­vid­u­als in need by pro­vid­ing finan­cial assis­tance with their ener­gy bills.

When you “round up” your month­ly bill from CEC and donate to this fund, you’re mak­ing a big dif­fer­ence in someone’s life. You are help­ing to meet an imme­di­ate, crit­i­cal need, but just as impor­tant­ly, you are telling this per­son the com­mu­ni­ty cares.

Over the years, our com­mu­ni­ty-focused pro­grams, food dona­tions and oth­er giv­ing projects have sup­port­ed local schools and young peo­ple, fed hun­gry fam­i­lies, enabled fam­i­lies in need to keep the lights on and so much more.

CEC also par­tic­i­pates in the Elec­tric Coop­er­a­tive Youth Tour, where we take our community’s bright­est young peo­ple to Wash­ing­ton, D.C. for a week-long immer­sion to expe­ri­ence democ­ra­cy  in action. Ulti­mate­ly, the larg­er com­mu­ni­ty ben­e­fits from these pro­grams because of you and your neigh­bors.

You’ve like­ly heard me say that the coop­er­a­tive prin­ci­ple “con­cern for com­mu­ni­ty” is part of Coastal’s DNA. It defines who we are as an orga­ni­za­tion. When we first brought elec­tric­i­ty to this com­mu­ni­ty in 1940, the qual­i­ty of life improved. But oth­er things also need to be addressed and through the years, this co-op has been at the fore­front of bring­ing improve­ments to the qual­i­ty  of life in this com­mu­ni­ty. It’s why we cre­at­ed Oper­a­tion Round Up.

To date, with your help, we’ve giv­en hun­dreds of thou­sands of dol­lars back to local fam­i­lies and indi­vid­u­als through this pro­gram. And across the coun­try, more than 350 elec­tric co-ops have an Oper­a­tion Round Up pro­gram, and togeth­er, we’ve raised mil­lions for local com­mu­ni­ties. This shows that small dona­tions from elec­tric co-ops like ours, over time, can col­lec­tive­ly make a big  impact.

As a local coop­er­a­tive, we have a stake in this com­mu­ni­ty. We hope you will think of Coastal Elec­tric as more than your ener­gy provider, but also as a cat­a­lyst for good in our com­mu­ni­ty.  I hope all our mem­bers have a joy­ous hol­i­day sea­son. May it be mer­ry and bright!

To learn more about Oper­a­tion Round Up CLICK HERE