Coastal Electric members help alleviate rural hunger

If you’re one of the 15,126 Coastal Elec­tric Coop­er­a­tive mem­bers who par­tic­i­pate in Oper­a­tion Round Up, did you know you’re help­ing feed peo­ple in our com­mu­ni­ty who might oth­er­wise go hun­gry?

That’s right! Mem­bers who par­tic­i­pate in the Oper­a­tion Round Up pro­gram allow Coastal Elec­tric to round up their elec­tric bill each month to the next whole dol­lar. Those nick­els and dimes are pooled togeth­er and invest­ed back into the local com­mu­ni­ty through the Coastal Elec­tric Coop­er­a­tive Foun­da­tion.

A few cents every month may not seem like much, but that small change makes a huge dif­fer­ence.

Case in point: In Jan­u­ary, the Coastal Elec­tric Coop­er­a­tive Foun­da­tion award­ed a $20,000 grant to America’s Sec­ond Har­vest of Coastal Geor­gia to help fund their Mobile Pantry Pro­gram.

Sec­ond Har­vest uses a refrig­er­at­ed vehi­cle to deliv­er food direct­ly to neigh­bor­hood dis­tri­b­u­tion sites in Bryan, Lib­er­ty, Long, and McIn­tosh coun­ties. The key advan­tage of mobile pantries is that they not only get the food to peo­ple who need it, but mobile pantries also allow for more fresh foods like fruits, veg­eta­bles, dairy, meats and oth­er pro­tein items to be dis­trib­uted, in addi­tion to non­per­ish­ables.

Accord­ing to Sec­ond Har­vest, in the four coun­ties Coastal Elec­tric serves, 15,730 indi­vid­u­als face hunger—including 5,480 chil­dren.

“With free gro­ceries, our rur­al neigh­bors are able to stretch their finances to pay for hous­ing, med­i­cine, and util­i­ties,” says Mary Jane Crouch, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor at America’s Sec­ond Har­vest of Coastal Geor­gia. “They are also able to stretch their minds to do well in school and at work.”

With the foundation’s sup­port, Sec­ond Har­vest plans to pro­vide a mobile food pantry three to 12 times each year in the four coun­ties Coastal Elec­tric serves. The orga­ni­za­tion will dis­trib­ute about 20,000 pounds of food at each dis­tri­b­u­tion to an aver­age of 300 house­holds each time.

The Coastal Elec­tric Coop­er­a­tive Foundation’s mis­sion is to assist with the food, health, safe­ty, edu­ca­tion, and shel­ter needs of cit­i­zens in coun­ties served by Coastal Elec­tric. Thanks to gen­er­ous Coastal Elec­tric mem­bers and America’s Sec­ond Har­vest of Coastal Geor­gia, those needs are being met, one per­son at a time.