YEC highlights local, young artists

The art of origa­mi requires skill, patience, plan­ning and cre­ativ­i­ty; all of which are things both York Elec­tric and mem­ber Ali Abdul-Karim prac­tice and know well. Since the age of 5, 12-year-old Ali has been drawn to com­bin­ing his pas­sion for math­e­mat­ics and art through origa­mi. His par­ents, Tan­wir Abdul-Karim and Khalilah Thomas, explain, “Ali loves geom­e­try, so the plan­ning and mea­sur­ing required to cre­ate origa­mi makes it a per­fect art form for him.”

Ali’s math­e­mat­i­cal pre­ci­sion is espe­cial­ly evi­dent in his origa­mi snake. This piece, made up of hun­dreds of blue and green pieces of intri­cate­ly fold­ed paper woven togeth­er, show­cas­es the young artist’s ded­i­ca­tion and skill in his craft.

Ali says, “I’m real­ly proud of my snake, because it took me so long to cre­ate. My favorite piece, though, is my red origa­mi spi­der. That one was chal­leng­ing and fun to make.”

When asked of his plans for the future, Ali explains that he would like to share his love for the paper fold­ing art form with oth­ers through a YouTube chan­nel or online shop. Wher­ev­er his path takes him, we can be sure to expect some­thing cre­ative.

The power of community is magnetic!

For one year, Jia­da Nguyen’s art will ride along with YEC employ­ees. Each coop­er­a­tive vehi­cle, large and small, is now equipped with a mag­net­ic bumper stick­er of Nguyen’s ren­di­tion of what we can accom­plish if we work togeth­er as a team.

Nguyen, a stu­dent at Banks Trail Mid­dle School in Fort Mill, was named the win­ner of YEC’s first annu­al Co-op Mag­net Design Chal­lenge for mid­dle school­ers ages 11–14. She won $50 and the chance to dis­play her art until June 2022 on all YEC vehi­cles. Her design show­cased this year’s theme, “The Pow­er of Com­mu­ni­ty.”

Com­mu­ni­ty is at the heart of YEC, and we are proud to enlist the help of young artists to spread our mes­sage. Whether we are empow­er­ing young artists like Nguyen, giv­ing back, or improv­ing the qual­i­ty of life for mem­bers, we are ded­i­cat­ed to the com­mu­ni­ties and mem­bers we serve.

When asked what the image meant to her, Nguyen says “We’re pow­er­ful togeth­er.” We could­n’t have said it any bet­ter.

Inter­est­ed in par­tic­i­pat­ing next year? Vis­it YEC’s Learn With Art page for more infor­ma­tion!

---

Teachers, start gathering your BRIGHT IDEAS!

Inter­est­ed in earn­ing up to $1,000 to sup­port an inno­v­a­tive idea for your class­room? Appli­ca­tions are now being accept­ed for the third annu­al Bright Ideas Grant pro­gram fund­ed by York Elec­tric Coop­er­a­tive and YEC’s Oper­a­tion Round Up pro­gram.