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Outreach efforts start with those just starting out in life
This story begins a series, Showing Our Commitment, which outlines the ways York Electric empowers the communities it serves
By Walter Allread
 What's a power company doing granting scholarships, sponsoring high school juniors on tours of the nation's capital and teaching elementary school students?
Fair question — if you're accustomed to dealing with power companies that exist solely to make profits for shareholders, that is. However, for a not-for-profit electric cooperative, there's more than one way to bring power to the people. So says Paul Basha, CEO of York Electric Cooperative.
"Providing reliable, affordable electricity isn't the only way we empower the communities we serve," Basha notes. "At York Electric, we express our commitment to community in a number of ways. Our daily business is distributing electricity to the co-op's members, but in a broader sense, America's electric cooperatives have always been about improving the quality of life in the communities we serve."
Helping local students get off to a good start in life is just the beginning, he says. "We understand the value of encouraging students and assisting their teachers. We even continue this effort into the summer by supporting 4-H summer camp programs and sponsoring little league teams."
But the co-op's community efforts don't end there, he adds: "We regularly collaborate with local chambers of commerce and economic development agencies. They help us attract and retain industries and businesses and the good jobs they provide for local people," Basha says.
The cooperative also gives its members an easy way to show their community spirit, he adds, with Operation Round Up. "By simply rounding up their monthly bill to the next dollar, they help neighbors in need." Basha notes that York Electric members have contributed about $940,000 to local people and community agencies in seven years of Operation Round Up.
Learning values
 Efforts like these also help young people appreciate the cooperative difference. Take Victoria Herold of Clover, for instance. Herold represented York Electric Cooperative on last summer's Washington Youth Tour. Like other co-ops across America, York Electric each year sends local students on the five-day trip, which Herold recalls as "a whirlwind history and government lesson."
In an essay that helped her win a scholarship available to South Carolina Youth Tour participants, Herold wrote that growing up in a family served by York Electric, she already "understood the benefits of ownership in our electric cooperatives." She was even more enthusiastic after the Youth Tour, which she calls "one of the best trips I have ever been on ... I will never forget it!"
York Electric also sponsors a Touchstone Energy Scholarship each year as well as a scholarship for School-to-Work Program participants. Ron Roveri, director of the Floyd D. Johnson Technology Center at York Comprehensive High School, says the support of businesses like York Electric really boosts the School-to-Work Program. "The co-op's contribution is one of the largest," notes Roveri, who says the scholarship aids program graduates entering college. "It really helps them out the first year. It pays for their books, basically. Every little bit helps," he says.
An elementary lesson
For younger students, the cooperative's commitment to education is even more elementary, if you will. As Basha notes, "Electrical safety may be the most basic lesson we can impart, but it's probably the most important." That's why York Electric each year sends lineworkers, servicemen and other employees to present safety demonstrations, he says.
Another co-op effort has augmented the lesson about electricity's dangers with reminder of its equally awesome positive properties. Two years ago, the cooperative gave local educators comprehensive Discovery Channel School Get Charged! curriculum kits that teach middle or junior high school students about electricity. The Get Charged! kits, which provide teachers with a complete curriculum package on a topic required by the National Science Education Standards, have been distributed to hundreds of schools by York Electric and other Touchstone Energy co-ops across the nation.
Basha adds, "We firmly believe that our educational efforts can have a far-reaching effect not only for the individuals we help but for the community at large. Empowering our members — young and old — and ensuring a safe environment fits our mission as a locally focused, locally owned electric co-op."
Related Story
Lineman proves his commitment to schools
 A York Electric lineman is expressing his own commitment to local schools in a big way: Mike Smith was elected to the board of York School District 1 on November 7. Smith, 37, has been employed by York Electric for more than 19 years, currently as a line maintenance technician. He and his wife, April, have been married 16 years. They reside in York with their two daughters, Tori, 5, and Grace, 3. The girls are the main reason Smith sought a board seat, he says. "I have a lot to put back into the community now, because of my kids," Smith says. "That's where I went to school, too, in York. I wanted to give back to the schools."
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