Presque Isle Electric & Gas Co-op members continue giving generously through their voluntary round up of change on their electric and natural gas billings to assist area community organizations and individuals. These member contributions to the PIE&G Communities First Fund enable grants and scholarships in their local communities within PIE&G’s service area.

At its March meeting, the PIE&G Communities First Fund Board of Directors finalized review of applications and made awards of $7,061. In April, the board awarded $10,500 in scholarships to local high school students.

Grant recipients include the following:

Alpena County

¯ Alpena County Sheriff’s Office — $1,361 toward the purchase of a portable, inflatable boat and related rescue equipment for the Alpena City Fire Department. The boat, commonly referred to as a “Banana Boat,” stores on fire rescue trucks and inflates in less than a minute. It has the capacity of carrying two personnel and at least one victim. Having the Banana Boat on hand will improve response times and will be available to assist other local fire departments during emergency ice water rescues.

Cheboygan County

¯ Cheboygan County Veterans Memorial Park — $2,500 to assist with the Cheboygan County Veterans Memorial Park Improvement Project. A small group of volunteers are working to improve the Veterans Memorial Park on Court Street in Cheboygan. The project started in 2018 and the design includes monuments, benches, sidewalks and landscaping to enhance the park appearance. The park will honor all veterans that made the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom. The funds awarded will be used to assist with the costs of tablet footings or sidewalks.

¯ Northern MI Voices Without Boarders — $200 for the purchase of choir music. Voices Without Boarders draws students from all over northern Michigan and is comprised of two choirs: the Great Lakes Youth Choir, whose members are students from Cheboygan, Pellston, Harbor Springs and Petoskey, and the Treble Choir, comprised ofyounger children from Cheboygan, Indian River, Harbor Springs, Petoskey, Charlevoix, and Alanson.

Montmorency County

¯ Atlanta Area Little League — $1,500 to purchase one of three scoreboards as part of their ball field upgrades. The little league is planning to improve the fields by adding three scoreboards, a set of bleachers and installing an irrigation system at one of the fields.

¯ Hillman Community Schools — $1,000 to assist with purchase of percussion instruments for the Hillman Elementary Beginning Band. The school reinstated its band program two years ago for K-12 students and purchased wind instruments to develop the elementary beginning band program. The next phase of development to grow the elementary band is to purchase percussion instruments. Due to the cost, maintenance expense and storage requirements of actual snare drums, the school will instead purchase percussion instrument sets. One set includes a pair of drumsticks, a practice pad, and a stand for the practice pad. The band program’s goal is to purchase 35 percussion sets, or enough for an entire class to use them and play at the same time.

¯ New Beginnings Ministries– $500 to purchase food for the all-volunteer Hillman Area Resource Pantry (HARP). The “Feed the Hungry” project at HARP has served 15,993 meals in the last year and over 94,725 meals in the last five years to people in need of assistance in the county.

Scholarships

The PIE&G Communities First Fund Board of Directors is pleased to announce that 10 students received $1,000 scholarships in April. The scholarships were awarded to the following high school seniors: from Alpena: Alysa Funk, Nikita Cordes, Johnathon Clayton and Elizabeth Belanger; from Hillman: Joslynn Brown; from Inland Lakes: Shaylee Michael and Ava Hansel; from Johannesburg-Lewiston: Brianna Matson; from Posen: George Kroll and Eyan Hincka.

The A. Barkley Travis Memorial Scholarship, valued at $500, was awarded to Makenna Grulke from Hillman.

About Presque Isle

Electric & Gas Co-op

PIE&G provides electric and natural gas service to about 30,850 member-owners across northeast Michigan and its headquarters is in Onaway. PIE&G is one of the largest employers in Presque Isle County, with 77 employees servicing about 33,500 electric meters and nearly 13,500 natural gas meters. Since 1997, the PIE&G Communities First Fund has provided over $1.56 million in grants to local nonprofits.