The Jackson EMC Foundation board of directors awarded a total $89,559 in grants during their June meeting, including $38,500 to agencies serving Hall County residents.

• It awarded $15,000 to the American Red Cross of Northeast Georgia to provide disaster relief, including food, shelter, personal needs and clothing, to families in Banks, Barrow, Clarke, Franklin, Hall, Jackson, Lumpkin, Madison and Oglethorpe counties who have lost their home to a fire or natural disaster.

• It awarded $10,000 to the Potter’s House, an Atlanta Mission facility, to help feed, house, counsel and provide educational programs such as adult literacy to men who are recovering from substance abuse through an intensive residential program at this 570-acre working farm in Jefferson.

• It awarded $7,500 to Lekotek of Georgia, a charitable organization that provides children with disabilities with accessible play, adaptive technology and toys, information and resources, to provide services through its Gainesville satellite office to serve 10 new families from Barrow, Clarke, Franklin, Hall, Jackson, Lumpkin and Madison counties, and to purchase additional adaptive toys and technology.

• It awarded $6,000 to Creative Community Services to help purchase a van to transport youth for the STEP Program, which helps prepare young people from all counties served by Jackson EMC to transition out of the state foster care system and into independent adulthood, preventing them from ending up in mental institutions, homeless shelters or jails as adults.

Jackson EMC Foundation grants are made possible by the more than 182,800 participating cooperative members who have their monthly electric bills rounded to the next dollar amount through the Operation Round Up program. Their “spare change” has funded 1,098 grants to organizations and 333 grants to individuals, putting more than $11 million back into local communities since the program began in 2005.

Any individual or charitable organization in the 10 counties served by Jackson EMC (Clarke, Banks, Barrow, Franklin, Gwinnett, Hall, Jackson, Lumpkin, Madison and Oglethorpe) may apply for a Foundation grant by completing an application, available online at www.jacksonemc.com/foundation-guidelines or at local Jackson EMC offices. Applicants do not need to be a member of Jackson EMC.