The Jackson EMC Foundation board of directors awarded a total $105,000 in grants to organizations during their May meeting, including $40,000 to organizations serving Hall county residents.

$15,000 to Family Ties-Gainesville for the Parenting 101 program that teaches effective communication, discipline and positive reinforcement skills that prevent and break the cycle of child abuse and neglect, for counseling services for children and their parents and for parenting instructors.

$11,000 to Camp Kudzu, a year-round camping program for children with diabetes and their families, to teach diabetes management skills that will reduce their risk of diabetes-related complications, as well as improve their attitude about living with the disease, to help children from the 10 counties served by Jackson EMC attend a one-week overnight summer camp.

$10,000 to Quinlan Visual Arts Center in Gainesville to enable 80 underserved students with exemplary artistic skills entering 1^st-8^th grades at Title I schools in Barrow, Hall, Jackson, Gwinnett and Lumpkin counties to attend one-week Art Camp sessions.

$4,000 to Nuci Phillips Memorial Foundation in Athens, a nonprofit organization working to prevent suicide, to enable young people from low income families to participate in Camp Amped, a summer day camp for northeast Georgia youth ages 11-18 focusing on positive mental health and music education.

Jackson EMC Foundation grants are made possible by the more than 185,241 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 1,197 grants to organizations and 345 grants to individuals, putting more than $12.1 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 http://www.jacksonemc.com/foundation-guidelines or at local Jackson EMC offices. Applicants do not need to be a member of Jackson EMC.