Last Updated on January 30, 2025 3:10 pm
Boone, North Carolina (January 30, 2025) – Watauga County citizens will benefit from five grants worth $42,500 awarded recently to local helping agencies from Blue Ridge Energy Members Foundation for the 2024 grant cycle.
The grants are examples of why Blue Ridge Energy established the Members Foundation in 2007 to support the work of community organizations providing services vital to the quality of life for the cooperative’s members. Since then, the Foundation has awarded over $1.84 million in community grants. Projects in the areas of health, wellness, education, youth, and economic and community development are the Foundation’s priorities for support.
A grand total of $150,000 was awarded to 20 organizations across the Blue Ridge Energy service area for the 2024 grant cycle. Local Watauga County agencies receiving grant awards include:
- Children’s Council of Watauga County, Inc. – $7,500 will help fund the Early Childhood Workforce Academy, a two-week training program aimed at reducing barriers for candidates pursuing employment as a childcare worker;
- High Country Caregivers – $5,000 to help support the Kinship Navigation program that currently serves more than 700 relatives caring for children who are not biologically their own;
- Mountain True – $7,500 to support the Riverkeeper Program that helps ensure the water flowing through the High Country region watersheds is fishable, swimmable, and drinkable;
- Opposing Abuse with Service, Information, and Shelter, Inc. (OASIS, Inc.) – $7,500 will help operate the only free and confidential Emergency Shelter Program for victims and children fleeing intimate partner violence or sex trafficking in Watauga and Avery Counties.
- Western Youth Network, Inc. – $15,000 to help construct Watauga County's only youth center, which will provide hundreds of needed spaces for afterschool and summer care for school-aged children.
In 2024, the Foundation also provided crisis funding assistance to more than 1,000 Blue Ridge Energy members who needed emergency help paying their electric and fuel bills. In 2024 and continuing into 2025, the Foundation will provide additional crisis energy assistance to members most affected by Hurricane Helene through our special Hurricane Helene Mountain Strong fund.
Funding for Foundation grants and crisis assistance comes from members participating in Blue Ridge Energy’s Operation Round Up® and Operation Round Up Plus® programs and an annual contribution from profits of the cooperative’s subsidiaries, Blue Ridge Energy, LLC, and RidgeLink, LLC. Over 23,500 members are either rounding up their monthly electric bill with Operation Round Up or adding a dollar or more with Operation Round Up Plus. Members also contribute by donating some or all of their annual capital credits.
Anyone with questions about the Foundation or agencies interested in applying for grants may contact Tasha Rountree, director of community relations, at 828-759-8994 or trountree@blueridgeenergy.com.
Blue Ridge Energy is a member-owned electric cooperative serving some 80,000 members in Caldwell, Watauga, Ashe, and Alleghany counties and parts of Wilkes, Avery, and Alexander counties. It also includes a propane heating fuels subsidiary and a business-to-business telecommunications subsidiary. Learn more at www.BlueRidgeEnergy.com.
(front row l-r): Jacob Willis, High Country Caregivers; Emma Crider, Mountain True; Jeanie Futrelle, Oasis, Inc.; Jennifer Warren, Western Youth Network, Inc.; Elisha Childers, Children’s Council of Watauga County, Inc.;
(back row l-r): JB Lawrence and Angie Miller, Blue Ridge Energy Board of Directors; Hannah Woodburn, Mountain True; Kellie Bass, Oasis, Inc.; Cindy Wallace, Western Youth Network; Heidi Ragan, Blue Ridge Energy Watauga District Manager
