As a member of Central Rural Electric Cooperative, you have a chance to participate in an exciting new program called Operation Round Up® and help those less fortunate than yourself. Operation Round Up® was developed to help the members of our communities who are in need. Operation Round Up® funds will be granted to individuals and organizations for disaster relief, education, and health care.

How does it work? Operation Round Up® will gather voluntary contributions from participating cooperative members by “rounding up” their monthly electric bills to the next dollar. By agreeing to voluntarily round up your electric bill you are allowing us, through a charitable foundation, to allocate these funds to help our neighbors. All it takes is the generosity of you, our members. If you agree to participate, each month your electric bill will be rounded up to the next highest dollar. For instance, if your bill is $65.76, your Operation Round Up® donation would be 24 cents. The amount of Operation Round Up® donation on each account will always be less than a dollar; the average at other cooperatives is about $6.00 a year per account for each participating member. Each person’s individual donation will not be much, but together, we can make a big difference.

Money obtained through Operation Round Up® donations will go to the Central Rural Electric Cooperative Foundation and are completely separate from Central Rural Electric Cooperative funds. This foundation is administered by an independent Board of Directors selected from the cooperative membership.

Applications for individuals or organizations in need may be obtained at the Central Rural Electric Cooperative office and will be considered by the nine-member Board of Directors of the Central Rural Electric Cooperative Foundation. You will see how your donations are working to help those in need through reports about Operation Round Up® in the CREC Newsletter.

How will we help our neighbors? Listed are possible charitable purposes of Operation Round-Up® funds: helping a family with expenses after losing their home to a devastating tornado, providing assistance to the needy for food, funding medical care and equipment for the sick or helping a child obtain eyeglasses.

Operation Round Up® funds will not be used to pay electric bills, nor will any funds be used for political purposes.

For more information about Operation Round Up®, please contact CREC Member Services (click here for the telephone number).