Lighting the way: Students reflect on a summer of growth

Garin Willi­ford, Demery Dur­rence, Keon Grant and Patrick Pop­pell spent a mem­o­rable sum­mer invest­ing in their future, as they suc­cess­ful­ly com­plet­ed Coastal Elec­tric Cooperative’s 2025 Learn­ers Today, Lead­ers Tomor­row sum­mer work­study pro­gram.

After almost two months work­ing 40-hour weeks with var­i­ous co-op depart­ments, these stu­dents from Lib­er­ty and McIn­tosh coun­ties pre­sent­ed to their fam­i­lies and co-op staff in late July, reflect­ing on their sum­mer jour­neys. From hands-on train­ing in career fields like engi­neer­ing, oper­a­tions, com­mu­ni­ca­tions and safe­ty to mean­ing­ful com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice, they gained career expe­ri­ence, built new skills and honed their aspi­ra­tions for the future.

Thanks to HR Coor­di­na­tor Natalyn Mor­ris and HR and Safe­ty Man­ag­er Daphanie Harris—the lead­ers who guide the program—these stu­dents not only learned about the elec­tric util­i­ty indus­try but also built soft skills like punc­tu­al­i­ty, pro­fes­sion­al­ism, col­lab­o­ra­tion and over­com­ing chal­lenges. They reg­u­lar­ly invest­ed time in local com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice projects.

In addi­tion to pay­checks earned dur­ing their sum­mer work­ing with Coastal Elec­tric Coop­er­a­tive, for com­plet­ing Learn­ers Today, Lead­ers Tomor­row, each stu­dent will receive a $500 schol­ar­ship.

Inter­est­ed in next summer’s pro­gram?

Stay up to date on oppor­tu­ni­ties for next year’s Learn­ers Today, Lead­ers Tomor­row pro­gram through the Coastal Elec­tric Coop­er­a­tive newslet­ter in Geor­gia Mag­a­zine, as well as the co-op’s Face­book and Insta­gram feeds.