The Jackson EMC Foundation board of directors awarded a total of $92,450 in grants during their December meeting, including $27,150 to agencies serving residents of Hall and Lumpkin counties. $10,000 to the Eyes of Love Lighthouse Mission in Buford, a grassroots ministry that collects and distributes clothes, food and furniture to those in need in Gwinnett, Hall and Barrow counties to help them get back on their feet and to help with rent on the building used to house the mission’s inventory. $9,650 to Choices Pregnancy Care Center in Gainesville for ultrasound services to check for a pregnancy’s viability and ectopic pregnancy, and to purchase parenting videos, literature and incentive baby items for its My Baby Counts program, which provides crucial parenting skills to pregnant women and new parents in Gwinnett, Hall and Jackson counties to break the cycle of inadequate parenting, neglect and abuse. $5,000 to NOA’s Ark (No One Alone), a Dahlonega emergency shelter and comprehensive support program for women and children who have been the victims of domestic violence or sexual assault, to help provide food to shelter residents and outreach clients. $2,500 to the Community Helping Place, a Dahlonega nonprofit that addresses hunger in the Lumpkin County community, to purchase food for its food pantry, summer food program and White Christmas food boxes. The Jackson EMC Foundation is funded by Operation Round Up, which rounds up the more than 180,000 participating cooperative members’ monthly electric bills to the next dollar amount. This “spare change” has funded 1,039 grants to organizations and 324 grants to individuals, putting more than $10.5 million back into local communities since the program began in 2005.