Georgia Magazine - November, 2009 - (Page 14)

COMPILED BY VICTORIA SCHARF DECASTRO Green power goes to class Green Power Electric Membership Corp. (GPEMC), headquartered in Tucker, has a new educational program that enables Georgia’s GPEMC employees to discuss energy efficiency, renewable energy and conservation with kids. Developed by GPEMC and teachers with the Georgia public school science programs, GPEMC has versions tailored for third- and sixth-graders. However, the two versions can also be applied to other grades. The presentation provides an excellent overview of sources of green power (solar, wind, biomass and water), background on traditional fossil-fuel energy sources, and an update on green power activities in Georgia. The Go Green Power presentation includes a series of activity sheets and experiments, which can be done in class or anytime as a follow-up to the presentation. For more information on Go Green Power, contact your electric cooperative. MITCHELL GRIFFIN Cornelia Tanner presents the tempting red velvet cake she baked that brought the high bid of $205 from Josh Miller, right. Nick Pandolfi hopes Miller will share the mini-cake baked as a joke that was given to Miller before the real cake was revealed. Silent auction takes the cake At Flint Energies in Reynolds, employee fund-raisers and donations help support Flint’s annual Christmas charity, Linemen for Little Ones, now in its fourth year. The program provides toys and food to the electric cooperative’s members in need during the holiday season. Each year, the number of families touched by this program has grown, and 2009 is no exception due to successful fund-raisers like the Baked Goods Silent Auction held in June. Flint employees donated 43 homemade baked goods—pound cakes, cookies, caramels and cobblers. An online bid form was created by the information technology department to allow bidding for a week on the company Intranet site. Competition became fierce with departments beginning to pool money in hopes of sharing a cake or two. The minimum bids of $5 for cakes and $3 for cookies and candy rose quickly, resulting in an astonishing total of $1,785 for the Christmas charity to help members. Flint’s online silent auction alone will fund toys and food for more than 10 children. The highest bid was $205 for a red velvet cake with creamcheese frosting. A good bit of bidding fun and some appetizing sweets donated by gracious bakers all add up to a brighter holiday season for members on hard times in Flint Energies’ Middle Georgia service area. Watch out for phone scams! Local electric membership corporations (EMCs) are warning their memberowners to be wary of giving out personal and financial information to just anyone. Officials with many EMCs report that scam artists are targeting elderly consumers with a telephone pitch that sounds too good to be true. Under the guise of a federal program, scammers ask EMC consumers for their account information and Social Security number so that a $350 credit for seniors can be www.georgiamagazine.org applied to their account. EMCs urge consumers who get any suspicious calls to report them to their co-op, and fraud alerts can be placed on their account. EMCs must adhere to the Federal Trade Commission’s Red Flags Rules relating to identity theft and consumer information protection. These new standards became effective in mid-2009 to protect consumers’ information and add an additional layer of protection to a variety of business transactions. © 2009 JUPITERIMAGES CORP GEORGIA MAGAZINE http://www.greenpoweremc.org http://www.georgiamagazine.org

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Georgia Magazine - November, 2009

Georgia Magazine - November, 2009
Contents
Viewpoint
Picture This?
Mailbox
Georgia News
Calendar
Holiday Festivities Guide
Currents
Thanking Disabled Veterans
New, Inspired and Tasty
Around Georgia
My Georgia
Georgia Gardens
Georgia Cooks
Snapshot

Georgia Magazine - November, 2009