MTE Customers Care donates $10,000 to Feed America First

Feed America First Executive Director Tom Henry displays a replica check for $10,000 from Middle Tennessee Electric Customers Care.

Middle Tennessee Electric Membership Corporation’s Customers Care has donated $10,000 of Operation Round Up funds to Feed America First.

“These funds are going to help us enhance our operation,” Feed America First Executive Director Tom Henry said, “which will allow us to feed more families in Tennessee.”

Feed America First is a nonprofit organization that provides food to those who feed the hungry. Since June 2000, Feed America First has distributed 18 million pounds of food to agencies throughout Tennessee, Alabama and Mississippi.

Operation Round Up began in 2003 and has distributed more than $3 million into MTEMC’s communities.

The initiative “rounds up” members’ bills to the next highest dollar, with that extra change set aside for worthy causes. It is the responsibility of the Customers Care Board, which is composed of seven MTEMC members, to evaluate grant requests and send the money back to qualifying organizations.

Incoming contributions are tracked by county so that the Customers Care Board can do its best to ensure money contributed by members in a certain county goes to that county. Any balances will be carried over each month.

MTE Customers Care funds may not be used for political or expressly religious purposes, schools or school-related organizations.

Posted on February 10, 2010.