Local Initiatives
Co-op Helps Fund Fire and Rescue
A Pennsylvania electric cooperative is helping the communities it serves buy equipment and build essential facilities with revolving loans. Much of the money raised for the projects has come from a federal rural development grant the co-op received 13 years ago.
Directors and senior staff members of Adams Electric present a check for $125,000 to a representative of West End Fire and Rescue in Shippensburg, Pa. (Photo By: Duane Kanagy/Adams EC)
“We made our first loan with a $400,000 grant from the Rural Utilities Service in 1998,” said Duane Kanagy, manager of communications/community services for Adams Electric Cooperative. “The co-op added $80,000 to the grant money and loaned it to Adams County for acquisition and development of land for a county-wide emergency services facility and a prison.”
As those funds were paid back, the Gettysburg-based co-op was able to offer a series of 12 loans to communities and non-profit organizations in its coverage area. Each of those loans, of up to $127,000, has helped expand or modernize facilities or purchase new equipment.
Over time, more than $2 million has flowed through the Adams Electric Cooperative Community Development Fund. Much of that money has come from repayment of the low-interest loans.
“Some of those loans have helped buy new fire and emergency vehicles for volunteer fire companies,” Kanagy said. “The most recent loan helped finance a new building addition for local firefighters. There are quite a few volunteer fire service companies in our four-county service territory.”
Co-op involvement has been an important source of funds for the organizations that have benefited from the loans, said Joe Cole, Adams Electric’s vice president of finance and corporate services. “We do this because emergency services to our local citizenry are such an essential community service.”
Volunteer fire companies often hold local fundraising events and many also have access to private financing or limited public funding. Still, without the low-cost loans, such projects would take more time, or be more costly, Cole said.
“Many of our local co-op consumer-members benefit from the services the volunteers provide, so this is a great way for us to fulfill our mission of improving life in the rural areas we serve.”