THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, February 28, 1996 TAG: 9602280002
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A10 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Short : 50 lines
Every month Virginia Power's 1.7 million customers are offered a chance to help their less-fortunate neighbors through a program called EnergyShare. Customers are asked to overpay their electric bills by as much or as little as they choose, for a fund that helps the poor pay their heating bills in winter.
The monies are distributed according to need, and not just to help pay electric bills - gas and oil heating bills are covered, too.
Maybe it's a marketing problem, maybe people are being asked for contributions everywhere they turn or maybe many think the utility companies are so rich they ought to be helping the poor stay warm without any help from regular folks. Whatever the reason, only 3 percent of Virginia Power's customers contribute to the fund.
This percentage is shockingly low. It is especially disturbing when you consider that many conservatives want to slash social-welfare projects. They claim that the American public is so generous it will pick up the charitable ball when the government drops it.
It's doubly alarming when you consider that Republicans in Congress proposed scrapping the federal program which helps low-income families pay their utility bills in a budget resolution last year. That federal program, Low Income Housing and Energy Assistance Program, was allocated $1 billion for the present fiscal year and is safe from cuts for the time being.
Only 51,000 Virginians saw fit to help their neighbors this year through EnergyShare - and they contributed $466,000. Virginia Power stockholders kicked in another $50,000 to the fund. But Virginia Power has been swamped with requests for help all month, and only $31,000 remains in the kitty.
EnergyShare is in its 13th year of helping low-income folks stay warm in winter. Many of those people are our neighbors in Hampton Roads. During January the local Salvation Army accepted 572 applications for help, and more than $66,000 was paid out to Hampton Roads residents who couldn't pay their heating bills.
Special envelopes for EnergyShare are being included in Virginia Power's February/March electric bills. We may be enjoying a late-winter thaw, but think back to early February's bitterly cold weather before tossing that envelope in the trash.
Winter isn't over yet. by CNB