The Jackson EMC Foundation board of directors awarded $92,450 in grants during their December meeting, including $59,650 to agencies serving area residents.
$15,000 to Habitat for Humanity of Gwinnett County for the “A Brush With Kindness” program, which provides minor home repairs, painting, landscaping and weatherization to low-income seniors, the disabled and low-income homeowners who financially struggle to maintain their home in decent and safe condition.
$15,000 to the Lawrenceville Cooperative Ministry for its Emergency Food Assistance Program, which provides clients with emergency food supplies, buying them time to deal with the difficult and frequently temporary circumstances they are facing and helping them get back on their feet.
$10,000 to the C.O.R.E. (Confidence, Ownership, Responsibility, Exercise) Program, a community health initiative covering Barrow, Clarke, Gwinnett, Jackson and Madison counties that engages underprivileged adolescents at risk for chronic conditions related to obesity and overweight conditions in a 12-week program of high intensity, high impact exercise and behavior modification upon referral by a pediatrician.
$10,000 to the Eyes of Love Lighthouse Mission in Buford, a grassroots ministry that collects and distributes clothes, food and furniture to those in need in Gwinnett, Hall, Barrow counties to help them get back on their feet, to help with rent on the building used to house the mission’s inventory.
$9,650 to Choices Pregnancy Care Center in Gainesville for ultrasound services to check for a pregnancy’s viability and ectopic pregnancy, and to purchase parenting videos, literature and incentive baby items for its My Baby Counts program, which provides crucial parenting skills to pregnant women and new parents in Gwinnett, Hall and Jackson counties to break the cycle of inadequate parenting, neglect and abuse.
The Jackson EMC Foundation is funded by Operation Round Up, which rounds up the more than 180,000 participating cooperative members’ monthly electric bills to the next dollar amount. This “spare change” has funded 1,039 grants to organizations and 324 grants to individuals, putting more than $10.5 million back into local communities since the program began in 2005.
Any individual or charitable organization in the 10 counties served by Jackson EMC (Clarke, Banks, Barrow, Franklin, Gwinnett, Hall, Jackson, Lumpkin, Madison and Oglethorpe) may apply for a Foundation grant by completing an application, available online athttp://www.jacksonemc.com/foundation-guidelines or at local Jackson EMC offices. Applicants do not need to be a member of Jackson EMC.
http://accesswdun.com/article/2016/1/366329/gainesville-non-profit-among-latest-recipients-of-jackson-emc-foundation-grants