Photo by Sue Watson
Sarah Sawyer, executive director of the Byhalia Area Chamber of Commerce, thanks Tom Pittman (left), CEO of Northwest Mississippi Community Foundation, and Kevin Doddridge, general manager of Northcentral EPA, for their presentations at the luncheon and also presents them gift bags.
Photos by Sue Watson
Jim Moore and Merideth Gray chat with Pat Woods at the Marshall County Historical Museum display during the recent Byhalia Area Chamber of Commerce membership luncheon.
Linda McKinney, headmaster Barrett Donahoe, and Kevin and Stephanie Cavender host a Marshall Academy booth at the recent Byhalia Area Chamber of Commerce luncheon.
Byhalia Chamber Luncheon
Mississippians are people who care about their neighbors.
The Community Foundation of Northwest Mississippi is a non-profit group that connects people who care and the causes they care about to their neighbors, according to president and CEO Tom Pittman.
The foundation serves 11 counties in Northwest Mississippi and provides mostly small grants to charitable causes such as education, children, and health programs.
The foundation awards $4.8 million to support over 482 community projects in Northwest Mississippi.
It serves as the connector. Donors can ask their money go to specific community needs, Pittman said.
He was invited speaker at a recent Byhalia Area Chamber of Commerce membership luncheon at Northcentral Electric Power Association in Olive Branch.
Pittman helped incorporate the Community Foundation in 2002, serving as its first volunteer and then taking the reins as full-time president and CEO in 2004.
Marshall County has received $8.1 million in grants, including an endowment from a donor who is interested in the Chickasaw Project. The project will hold an event at Spring Hollow Park September 14, the first of its kind in Marshall County.
A benefactor with connections to Charleston gave $2 million dollars because he was interested in moving Tallahatchie County off the bottom of the sickest of the sick in Mississippi.
Pittman said small grants to communities connect big ideas and a dream, and connect people with causes they want to volunteer for.
The foundation has a project to teach children about personal finance. And Clarksdale youth will benefit from a college scholarship fund because of a donation.
Pittman said Mississippi leads the nation in generosity with $1.6 billion in giving. He said if people donated five percent of their transferable wealth, $233 million could be raised.
“If we all gave just a little, we can do a lot for our community,” he said.
Transferable wealth can come in stocks, properties, wills – anything a person has of value that they want to leave to the Foundation.
Some projects the foundation supports in Marshall County include playground equipment and an expanded walking trail to promote healthy lifestyles in Byhalia; the Ida B. Wells Barnett Museum oral history project to support storytelling by elementary students; a Youth Ambassadors for Wildlife project at Strawberry Plains Audubon Center; Alliance Charitable Foundation for county health initiatives; Healthy Bodies/Healthy Futures teen leadership for high school students at Rust College; Bluejays Junior Garden Club created a community garden; Sacred Heart Southern Missions disaster relief fund following the 2015 tornado and much more.
Doddridge report
Northcentral Electric General Manager and CEO Kevin Doddridge provided a brief summary of accomplishments over the last year.
They include:
• a 3.6 percent growth in the cooperative. Growth was good and steady.
• a financially sound cooperative.
• rates 12 percent below the national average and 11 percent below the state average.
• a $103 million budget for this year due to capital costs going into the northeast part of the system in Chickasaw Trail Industrial Park in Marshall County. Multiple substations and multiple breakers are being put in.
• assets of about $150 million with a debt of about $20 million.
Northcentral will spend about $500,000 on right-of-way cleanup. Maintenance and inspections will be ramped up. Fiber is being installed in part of the system (at substations) so an activity can be monitored in real time.
“Fiber will help us keep up with what’s going on in the substations and we can take actions at the central office,” Doddridge said. “We may be able to correct a problem in the office.”
In the future, the utility could connect fiber from residences so that appliances could be monitored and regulated. Appliances that could be regulated to conserve power consumption include water heaters and air conditioning/central heating. The connection would be through the use of broadband.
Broadband connection speeds are not what they need to be in order to capitalize on this new technology, Doddridge said.
“Most people are using smart phones to connect, not a computer connection,” he said.
Some improvements in Northcentral’s strategic plan include use of social media to communicate with customers.
Northcentral continues to expand upon safety and develop a culture of safety, he said.