Jackson EMC Foundation supports for school field trips

JEFFERSON-The Jackson EMC Foundation, a charity funded by the electric cooperative's members through their contributions to Operation Round Up, has awarded a $5,000 grant to the Elachee Nature Science Center in Gainesville to help fund environmental science and nature field trips. Elachee provides hands-on, brains-on environmental education classes for school systems in north Georgia and neighboring states. More than 31,400 students attended an Elachee field trip during 2009. Elachee has provided education programs for 30 years and is recognized as one of the premier environmental education centers in the southeast.

Teachers consistently choose Elachee for the extension of their classroom learning whenever possible because all Science Center programs are directly correlated to the State Department of Education's Georgia Performance Standards (GPS) that set teaching and learning objectives in schools. The Foundation grant will help cover the cost of field trips for students from schools in Banks, Barrow, Franklin, Gwinnett, Hall, Jackson and Lumpkin counties during the 2010-2011 school year.

Jackson EMC members fund Foundation grants by having their monthly electric bills rounded up to the next dollar amount through the Operation Round Up program. Since October 2005 this spare change has funded 447 grants to organizations and 169 grants to individuals, putting more than $4.7 million back into local communities.

Any individual or charitable organization in the ten 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 at http://www.jacksonemc.com/Guidelines-for-Funding.106.0.html or at local Jackson EMC offices. Applicants do not need to be a member of Jackson EMC.