By: Lydia Crawley The Parsons Advocate
Representatives for Clearway sat down with the Parsons Advocate to discuss plans for not only the Catmount Windfarm Project, but how the company plans to invest in the Tucker County community through their various community initiatives. Manager, Community Affairs Callie Dayton, Plant Manager, Black Rock Doug Vance and Lead Tech, Black Rock Sam Vosloh discussed the initiatives at length.
“We have multiple different facets of the community benefits package for each project that we do here,” Dayton said.
One part of the community benefits package is Adopt a School. According to Dayton, the site will adopt a local school with the principles of “Build, Teach and Do.” The program includes the donation of funds for different projects such as new lockers at other schools, pizza parties, reading to students during Dr. Seuss week, or just anything that the school may come up that the company could partner with. No determination has been made for Tucker County yet, but the Dayton said the company looks forward to making connections and working with the district to see what needs can be fulfilled.
The company will also offer a Community Benefit Fund, Dayton said. The fund is slated to offer $50,000 per year. The company plans to talk to local leaders such as the Development Authority, County Commission and Chamber of Commerce in order to brainstorm projects to fund within the community. Past projects, according to Dayton and Vance have been playgrounds, pavilions for Jennings Randolph Lake and tooling for college students for the vocational programs, as well as financial donations.
“They apply for those grants through our benefit fund, they can get things taken care of like signs for their fields, build additions, get different things like that,” Vance said. “That’s where this money comes in handy for them.”
Vance said that the fund generally hands out approximately 30 grants a year. Typically, all applicants get some amount from the fund, Vance said, depending on criteria.
Dayton said that the company is also seeking a large municipal project for the Tucker County area. Dayton illustrated that the company asked landowners in Mt. Storm how they could help the community there and overwhelmingly the answer was EMS services since the community was waiting nearly two hours for an ambulance. The company in return donated land for a new EMS station so that the community could receive funding to construct the station. The decision was based on the following question.
“If there is something in the community that we can do to help, that would help everyone in the Mt. Storm area, what would that be?” Dayton said.
The Tucker County project would not necessarily be EMS related. Dayton only used the Grant County EMS as an illustration of a previous project. Dayton said the company is committed to working with the Tucker County community to see what project would best suit the needs of the community as a whole.
“We are hopeful, too that we can find some sort of project to really support the entire community,” Dayton said.
Dayton said that as the permitting process moves forward, the company looks forward to establishing and nurturing a relationship with Tucker County EMS, officials and local fire departments.
