Mike Couick
In sub-Saharan Africa, mobile phones have modernized communications in the region. Unfortunately, there remains limited access to dependable electricity in rural villages. So, while there are plenty of cell phones, charging the devices is difficult and expensive.
However, one bright local teenager figured out how to turn a mattress into a mobile phone charging station. The mattress was equipped to absorb the sun’s abundant thermal energy during the day, provide power to the family’s phones and still serve its primary purpose at night. It’s an innovative technology he shared not only with his fellow villagers but also with surrounding villages.
Rural communities in South Carolina are certainly blessed with many more resources than most African villages, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have our share of so-called “deserts.” Many cooperative members live in food deserts, where the nearest grocery store or supermarket is more than 10 miles away. This problem is exacerbated by overlapping transit deserts, where there is little access to transportation. Only a handful of our small towns have thriving local media outlets, like weekly newspapers or hometown radio stations, creating what some call news deserts. The term could be applied to a myriad of needs that burden many of our rural communities—health care, housing, education, infrastructure and much more.
One resource we do not lack in South Carolina is young, innovative minds. Our state boasts three of the best public honors colleges in the nation. Students come here from all over the country to be a part of the elite programs at the University of South Carolina, Clemson University and South Carolina State University. They are joined in those classrooms by bright South Carolinians, some of whom have seen or even experienced firsthand the troubles that grip their hometown communities.
Unfortunately, many of these students tend to take their intelligence and skills elsewhere once they graduate. The Charlottes, Atlantas and New Yorks are benefitting from our state’s top honors programs at the expense of the McCormicks, Barnwells and Ridgelands.
That’s why The Electric Cooperatives of South Carolina has partnered with those three universities’ honors colleges in a new initiative called Pay It Forward. Beginning this academic year, honors college students will have the option to compete for cash prizes by solving distinct, reparable problems facing rural South Carolina. In lieu of writing a senior thesis or submitting a capstone project, participating students will select and research one of the dozens of rural challenges and propose a solution.
A panel of judges representing the electric cooperatives will determine individual school winners and an overall winner, with the top prize worth $5,000. In addition, the winning projects will be featured in an upcoming edition of South Carolina Living magazine.
We’re asking the students to address a particular problem in one of our cooperative-served communities and propose a solution that could be replicated across the state. A future architect from Pelion might figure out what to do about aging schools in Williamsburg. A young writer from Beaufort and an engineering student from Illinois may collaborate on improving economic development in Hopkins.
Not only does this initiative create the possibility of improving rural health care or developing an educated workforce, but it also increases our chances of keeping some of these great young minds in South Carolina. I truly believe that if these students make such intellectual investments in our communities, they are more likely to stick around.
By calling the program Pay It Forward, we’re recognizing that these honors students can use some of the advantages with which they are blessed for the benefit of many in the disadvantaged areas of our state. By challenging them with real, local problems and incentivizing them toward solutions, we’re investing in an intellectual infrastructure that can pay dividends for years to come.
Innovative and community-focused thinking solved the problem of rural electrification more than 80 years ago. I’m hopeful it can do the same for the important issues facing our state today.
For more information on the Pay it Forward initiative or to register to participate, see ecsc.org/pif.