CEO Karen Moore
“The best exercise for the human heart is reaching down to lift someone else up.”
This quote from the late journalist Tim Russert reflects the special bond and obligation that ties Baldwin EMC and our employees to the community we serve. With Valentine’s Day approaching, we can’t think of a better time to express how much we love this community and serving you, the members of the co-op.
We know when we helped to bring electricity to rural Alabama many years ago, the quality of life improved for all. Through the years, other issues needed to be tackled, and we have been at the forefront of helping to address some of those issues. We want to help meet the long-term needs of our community to ensure it continues to thrive – because just like you, we live here too.
While our top priority is to provide safe, reliable and affordable energy to you, equally important is our mission to enrich the lives of the members (that’s you!) that we serve. This focus to benefit the larger community is central to the way we operate as a cooperative. Baldwin EMC knows that electricity is a critical need for modern-day life, but it takes more than poles and power lines to make a community.
Over time, our co-op has evolved to meet the changing needs of our community, thereby improving the quality of life for everyone. And that can mean many different things.
It can mean programs for Baldwin County’s youth, such as college scholarships or the Electric Cooperative Youth Tour, where we take our community’s brightest young people to Washington, D.C. for a week-long immersion to experience democracy in action. It means organizing food and clothing drives and contributing more than $4 million over the last 16 years to Operation Round-Up, a program that helps charitable agencies and local families in need. It means partnering with organizations like LifeSouth Community Blood Center for our annual Spring into Action and Power of Giving drives and other worthy programs.
Over the last eight decades, our community-focused programs and other giving projects have built community parks, fed hungry families, enabled those in need to keep the lights on and so much more – and we couldn’t do any of this without you, our members. We all benefit from these programs because of you and your neighbors. You empower the cooperative through your membership and through your participation in and support of these programs.
As a local business, we are proud to partner with you to bring good things to our community. By working together, I’m certain that we can continue to make life a little better for this wonderful area we call home.