Community news
05 September 2023
With our employees living and working in the communities we serve, Essential Energy remains committed to supporting the many registered charities, not-for-profit and community groups, community halls, schools and sporting clubs across our network.
We do this each year through the Community Choices Program, which provides $250,000 in funding across 95% of NSW, and parts of southern Queensland, however it is the communities that decide which groups receive the funding.
Chief Corporate Affairs Officer, Anne Pearson said the program continues to grow each year, with the organisations who receive the most votes receiving the funding.
“Essential Energy is proud to support grassroot organisations through the Community Choices program. We know there are many organisations across our footprint who have done it tough these past few years – with natural disasters and COVID all impacting on their ability to raise invaluable funds,” Anne said.
Groups were able to nominate for the program in June, with more than 490 organisations making it through to the voting stage.
“This year we increased funding to a total of $250,000 to be shared between eligible groups across 20 zones in our network footprint. This means $5,000 is now available to groups that get the most votes in their region, with the amounts for second and third place also increasing to $3,500 and $2,750 respectively.
“Groups from small communities with populations less than 10,000 were also again able to nominate and get their community voting to help them access $1,250 funding for the group with the most votes."
Voting ran for two weeks from Monday 3 July with more than 90,000 votes received.
“Congratulations to all our winners and thank you to all the groups for nominating,” Anne said.
