Local Charities Receive Grant Funds from South Alabama Electric Cooperative & CoBank for a cure for cancer, has received a $7,280 donation from South Alabama Electric Cooperative and CoBank, a cooperative bank serving vital industries throughout rural America.

Pike County United Appeal, a local agency supporting funding for 17 agencies, all of which provide needed resources for the community, has received a $2,000 donation as well.

Based in Troy, Alabama, South Alabama Electric Cooperative provides electricity throughout nine counties. South Alabama Electric Cooperative has been a supporter of the American Cancer Society and Pike County United Appeal for many years.

“The American Cancer Society is an organization very close to our hearts,” said SAEC Manager of Member Services Andy Kimbro. “There aren’t many people who haven’t been affected by cancer in some way. Our team lost Carolyn Walker a few years ago, and it was like losing a family member.” The second organization benefited by this donation is Pike County United Appeal, which Kimbro praises for its commitment to the local charity. In fact, all funds raised by Pike County United Appeal are distributed to communities in the cooperative’s service area. “One of the organizations that they support is the Organized Community Action Program, which often helps our members pay their electric bills if there is a need. A partnership with them makes perfect sense.”

American Cancer Society Community Development Manager Megan Kirkland appreciates the partnership with South Alabama Electric Cooperative. “Their generous donation will be used and appreciated by families in our area affected by cancer, as well as by researchers actively seeking a cure,” she said.

South Alabama Electric Cooperative’s donation was matched by CoBank through its Sharing Success program. Sharing Success was established in 2012 to celebrate the International Year of the Cooperative. Since the program’s inception, CoBank and its customers have together provided more than $25 million in support to charitable organizations across the nation.

“Sharing Success has had a broader and deeper impact than we ever imagined,” CoBank’s President and Chief Executive Officer Tom Halverson said. “We are delighted with the growing participation in the program by our customers and deeply grateful to them for their assistance in identifying worthy charitable causes deserving of our support. We look forward to partnering with our customers once again this year and to sharing our success in the best cooperative tradition.”

If you use a search engine to find South Alabama Electric’s website to pay your electric account, please make sure you select the link to the cooperative’s website.

Members may unintentional click a link from an online payment processor not affiliated with the cooperative. These companies may appear legitimate because they use our co-op logo. They design their payment pages to look official and mimic the cooperative’s actual web page. However, if you read the fine print, you’ll see that they are not affiliated with the cooperative and most charge a fee for their service. Third party bill payment services such as Doxo, allow you to pay your various bills online, but what they don’t tell you is how long it takes for your payment to arrive at the cooperative. Third-party payment systems that are not integrated into South Alabama Electric Cooperative’s billing system and may take several business days longer to process.

Many times these companies simply print out a physical check and mail it to us on your behalf. If that payment is made too close to the bill’s due date, it may result in an avoidable late fee. Likewise, members who submit payments on a disconnect notice may run the risk of their payment not making it to our system before their service is cut off.

Always remember that SAEC’s official website will show you your actual balance and we will not charge you a fee to pay your bill. As long as you are using the pay bill option on our homepage, calling (877) 566-0611 or have an automatic bank draft set up to pay your bills online, you can rest assured that your payments will always post the instant you make them.