LAURINBURG — The Habitat for Humanity and ReStore for Scotland County was presented with a special donation by Pee Dee Electric on Friday.
Vice President of Member Services Cathy Page gave a $5,000 check to Executive Director Chris Carpenter from the Pee Dee Electric Care to Share program.
“Utility bills of our members (who participate) are rounded up and, with that, it goes into a fund,” said Page.
On their website, the company states that, by rounding up their monthly electric bill to the nearest dollar amount, their members have contributed more than $826,000 since 2005 and monthly contributions range between a penny and 99 cents, with a yearly contribution of no more than $11.88.
The extra cents, together with contributions from other members, are placed in a special trust managed by Pee Dee Electric’s Board of Directors. Pee Dee Electric has given to around 30 non-profits in the past year.
Page said that non-profit organizations such as Habitat are allowed to apply for grants and many residents who give into the fund are in the rural areas of Scotland County.
“We serve around 1,600 to 1,700 members mainly in the Laurel Hill area and the rural community (who give),” added Page. “We don’t have to service the non-profit, the non-profit has to service our members.”
Carpenter says the donation allows Habitat to move ahead on updating the ReStore building.
“We’re changing all the fluorescent lighting in the building to LED lighting,” said Carpenter. “We’re paying $6,500 to fix 63 lights, so it covers the majority of it and, without this grant, we would have to put it off for at least another year. So this grant is making it happen now.”
He adds that the new lights will bring their light bill down which saves the Habitat money in the long run.
“It also will make for more pleasant shopping experience for the customers, which we are always trying to figure out ways to do that,” Carpenter said.
Jael Pembrick can be reached at 910-506-3169 or [email protected].
