Loving Giving Local: Northwestern Rural Electric Cooperatives Member to Member Foundation

Yahoo

06-02-2025

Helping to keep the lights and heat on for some residents of northwest Pennsylvania is being made possible with a little help from Loving Giving Local.
Northwestern Rural Electric Cooperatives Member to Member Foundation was the lucky random recipient of this week's Loving Giving Local donation from Auto Express.
Northwestern Rural Electric Cooperative provides electric service to 20-thousand members in all or part of five counties in northwestern Pennsylvania. Powered up since 1937, it's the first electric cooperative in Pennsylvania.
There's a command center at the NW REC's headquarters in Cambridge Springs. From there, staff can monitor power outages and service interruptions with state-of-the-art technology and monitor and prepare for adverse weather conditions that could cause power disruptions.
Line crews work around the clock restoring service and providing routine maintenance both in the field and from its headquarters.
The Cooperative doesn't have customers. It has members. When members have a hard time paying their electric bill, the cooperative Member to Member Foundation can help.
According to Emily Sonntag of NW REC, 'Each member can apply and they get allocated up to $300 if they're approved.' She added, 'We're really, we're just trying to aid our members. It's no secret that costs are rising and it's harder to get by, so we want to ensure that our members know that we are here for them. We are actually owned by our members so everything we do, they are at the heart of it.'
According to Sonntag, this week's Loving Giving Local donation of $250 from Auto Express is going to the Member-to-Member Foundation's annual meat raffle. 'So, the aim of this raffle is to raise funds for our Member-to-Member Foundation and to support those within our community. So we actually purchase the meat from the 4h kids at the Crawford County Fair and it's really an environment we want to have within our community, so that's what we'll use those funds for.'
Joe Askins of Auto Express Resale Center said, 'For us to bring Loving Giving Local to Member to Member today and to learn what Member to Member does which is provide electric to the rural community and to help out with that electric to people in need, so for us to be able to deliver a check today and to learn this check we bring is going to youth in our community whether its local 4h club or since it's going to stick right here in our community, that's what loving giving local is all about,' Askins said.
Each week JET 24 and Auto Express donate $250 to a randomly selected Erie area non-profit organization.
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