Holiday Food Drive 2021

While our office remains closed to the public, we at Sussex Rural Electric once again sponsored a collection drive. We called on our members to make donations of nonperishable, shelf-stable, and canned food items to benefit the Sussex County Division of Social Services' food pantry. This collection drive ran from November 1st, 2021 to December 16th, 2021. As the holidays grew nearer and temperatures began to drop, it was all the more important to provide essential food items to those in need.

Members were able to stop by our office with their donation items. While our lobby was closed to the public, members arriving with food items could ring the doorbell by the main entrance and leave their donations in our vestibule once buzzed inside by our member services staff.

Father John's Animal House Collection Drive

After hosting several successful donation drives to support underprivileged members of our community, SREC shifted focus to helping another group that needs support, animals without homes. From February 6 - March 5, 2020, Sussex Rural Electric hosted a supply drive to benefit Father John's Animal House in Lafayette. We partnered with iHeart Media to make this possible. We hosted Steve Allan and the 102.3 WSUS team at our office to film episodes of the Pet of the Week, featuring animals from Father John's, to start and end this collection drive.

At the end of the month-long collection, it was clear that our members pulled off something amazing! Overall, we collected over 330 pounds of pet food, along with a plethora of other items such as pet toys and other supplies, office supplies, and cleaning items. We are proud to have also presented the good people from Father John's with a check for $1,000 from our community action fund. This comes from a fund of capital credits that have remained unclaimed by former members. Since we cannot reach these members and we are a not-for-profit organization, we choose to reinvest this money back into the community when we can.

We are proud to support great, local organizations like Father John's Animal House. If you are looking to add a new furry friend to your family, please consider adopting an animal from a shelter instead of buying one from a pet store. You can find more information about Father John's Animal House at https://www.fatherjohns.org/.

Holiday Toy Drive

In 2018 and 2019, Sussex Rural Electric Cooperative has hosted a toy drive on behalf of Family Promise of Sussex County. We collected donations of toys and new or lightly used winter clothing for the children and families of our communities who have or will experience homelessness. Families now comprise as high as 35% of the homeless population. 1 in 5 homeless people is a child.

During these drives, we have called on our membership to help make these children's holidays a little brighter, and they answered that call! After the collection ended, we had over 80 individual gifts that Family Promise could give to a child in need. We rewarded our members' kind donations with a free four-pack of LED light bulbs.

Donations were distributed as gifts to local children at Family Promise of Sussex County's annual client Christmas party.

Stand Down for Veterans Clothing Drive

In May of 2019, we hosted a supply drive to collect clothing items for our county's population of homeless veterans. The new or lightly used clothing, as well as hygiene and toiletry items, donated by our members was distributed to these veterans at Pass It Along's Stand Down for Veterans event. This event welcomes homeless military veterans and in addition to clothing offers them free haircuts, warm meals, access to resources such as medical, legal, and mental health consultation.

At the end of the collection, our members had donated over 600 pounds of clothing and hygiene items to be given to veterans at this event! We are incredibly proud to have such generous members. As a reward for our members' kindness, we gave away a free four-pack of LED light bulbs for every donation.