Giving money, getting money

Giving money

Employ­ees make dona­tion for the West­ern York Coun­ty Agri­cul­ture Are­na

York Elec­tric pre­sent­ed a $15,000 dona­tion from co-op employ­ees for the planned West­ern York Coun­ty Agri­cul­ture Are­na at a Mod­ern-Day Barn Rais­ing Fundrais­er on May 17.

The new are­na, which will be locat­ed on 97 acres across from Hick­o­ry Grove Sharon Ele­men­tary School, will pro­vide stu­dents and teach­ers with oppor­tu­ni­ties for hands-on learn­ing, lead­er­ship devel­op­ment and com­mu­ni­ty-build­ing, with the poten­tial to impact 4,500 stu­dents through­out York Coun­ty.

The project is the vision of the Agri­cul­ture Steer­ing Com­mit­tee, formed in Sep­tem­ber 2023, with mem­bers from York School Dis­trict One, Clover School Dis­trict and York Coun­ty 4H. The are­na will pro­vide a cen­tral hub for agri­cul­tur­al edu­ca­tion where 4H pro­grams and the local Future Farm­ers of Amer­i­ca (FAA) can have a per­ma­nent home. Cur­rent­ly, stu­dents inter­est­ed in these pro­grams face sig­nif­i­cant trav­el bar­ri­ers because there is no local space to host live­stock shows and relat­ed events.

The co-op’s employ­ee dona­tion fund is just one way York Elec­tric impacts the community’s growth and suc­cess. As your co-op, pro­vid­ing afford­able, safe and reli­able ener­gy is not our only goal. The same issues that affect York Elec­tric mem­bers are the same ones that affect our employ­ees and their fam­i­lies, which is why our employ­ees are ded­i­cat­ed to help­ing York Coun­ty and sur­round­ing com­mu­ni­ties grow and pros­per.

Getting money

Com­po­ri­um dis­pers­es over $1,000,000 to York Elec­tric from joint grant appli­ca­tion

In May, York Elec­tric received $1,099,012 through its inter­net ser­vice part­ner, Com­po­ri­um, as a part of the S.C. Look­back Grant, a fed­er­al pro­gram dis­trib­uted through the State to help stim­u­late broad­band instal­la­tion by cov­er­ing a por­tion of the equip­ment, instal­la­tion and labor costs the co-op took on dur­ing the rur­al inter­net project, which expand­ed broad­band in under­served areas of YEC’s ter­ri­to­ry. This grant dis­burse­ment, for which YEC sup­plied Com­po­ri­um with data to apply, marks the com­ple­tion of the more than two-year project.

Dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, co-op mem­bers need­ed access to reli­able, high-speed inter­net more than ever. To meet this chal­lenge, York Elec­tric part­nered with Com­po­ri­um to increase inter­net avail­abil­i­ty for unserved mem­bers in west­ern York Coun­ty and parts of Chero­kee Coun­ty. Span­ning over almost 600 miles of fiber-optic cable, the Rur­al Inter­net Project has trans­formed con­nec­tiv­i­ty for pre­vi­ous­ly unserved mem­bers.

This joint fiber expan­sion project began in Decem­ber 2020. Since then, the project has pro­gressed in three phas­es, con­clud­ing in June 2023. Over 26 months of con­struc­tion, this $16 mil­lion com­mu­ni­ty invest­ment has brought broad­band access to 5,000 co-op mem­bers. Fam­i­lies have great­ly ben­e­fit­ed from this effort, which has enhanced their abil­i­ty to work remote­ly, learn online, and stream enter­tain­ment con­tent.

Comporium’s excel­lent cus­tomer ser­vice, com­bined with York Electric’s skilled labor and state-of-the-art equip­ment, has ensured the project’s suc­cess. But, most impor­tant­ly, the com­ple­tion of the Rur­al Inter­net Project is yet anoth­er instance of York Elec­tric mak­ing good on its promise to improve the qual­i­ty of life for mem­bers.

As a not-for-prof­it util­i­ty, York Elec­tric views this grant not as a pay­out, but as an oppor­tu­ni­ty to fur­ther enhance the ser­vices and sup­port it pro­vides to the com­mu­ni­ty.