Mike Couick
Owned by its members, your electric cooperative is unique. In addition to providing safe, affordable and reliable power, cooperatives are doing innovative things in and around South Carolina to improve the quality of life in their communities.
1. Your local cooperatives deliver electricity to 1.5 million people in all 46 counties across the state of South Carolina, more than any other S.C. utility.
2. Delivering your electric power is a huge task. Your local cooperatives maintain the state’s largest power-distribution system, more than 75,000 miles of distribution line and more than 850,000 poles carrying primary wire across the state of South Carolina.
3. Keeping lineworkers safe is a top priority. The employees of your local cooperatives are also your friends, neighbors and relatives—they’re family. These employees, and your cooperative’s management and board, go the extra mile to make sure lineworkers get home safe at the end of every workday. Part of this commitment to safety is participating in many of our 315 safety classes.
4. When natural disasters like hurricanes, floods, ice storms or tornadoes strike, your local cooperatives are at the ready. In times of emergency, a network of helpers extends beyond our state borders, with convoys of trucks and crew support vehicles activated from co-ops around
the Southeast. Over the past 10 years, approximately 1,500 lineworkers from Kentucky, Florida, Tennessee, Mississippi, North Carolina, Virginia, Louisiana, Missouri, Alabama, Georgia and Arkansas have come to assist us in our time of need.
5. Neighborliness is a two-way street, and so, over the past decade, your local cooperatives have sent approximately 800 crews to our neighbors in Georgia, North Carolina, Virginia, Florida and Kentucky when they needed help. Wherever they go, electric cooperative lineworkers are committed to restoring power as quickly and as safely as possible.
6. Your local cooperatives are powering the future. Through the annual Washington Youth Tour, organized by the state association of electric cooperatives, rising high school seniors in co-op communities are selected to attend this week-long, all-expenses-paid trip to the nation’s capital. During their trip, students learn about the importance of public service and develop a deeper understanding of American history. Over the past decade, 660 S.C. seniors have attended, with 72 making the trip in 2019.
7. They are a favorite part of this magazine: the recipes! As a publication of your local cooperatives, South Carolina Living has served up more than 235 delicious recipes—ranging from venison chili to baked Alaska—courtesy of Chef Belinda Smith-Sullivan, a member of Aiken Electric Cooperative. Chef Belinda has also recorded more than 50 how-to cooking videos and video recipes that can be found on SCLiving.coop/food/chefbelinda.
8. When Duke University set the goal to become carbon neutral by 2024, South Carolina’s cooperatives were among the first partners. Since 2014, your local cooperatives have been selling environmental credits called carbon offsets to Duke University’s Carbon Offsets Initiative. The offsets correspond with monthly energy reductions for participants in the Help My House weatherization program, an on-bill financing initiative available in a growing number of South Carolina cooperatives. The program’s zero-down-payment loans and affordable interest rates help pay for new heat pumps, insulation, air sealing and duct sealing—which lower energy use in the home, shrinking its carbon footprint.
9. The oldest continuous all-star football game in the South takes place each December with S.C.’s top high school players meeting for the Touchstone Energy Cooperatives Bowl. Your electric cooperatives announce the selection of 88 players—half on the South squad and half on the North. The two teams develop a true spirit of camaraderie throughout the week leading up to the big game—most significantly during their annual charitable Christmas shopping trip with 44 local disadvantaged children from the Myrtle Beach community, creating holiday memories and friendships that last a lifetime.
10. Your electric cooperatives exist to serve YOU. In an average day, each of your local cooperatives receives an average of 398 member services calls, which is a total of 7,964 calls statewide. No matter the need or the question, we are always just a phone call away.