4-County Foundation Gets Boost for Area Philanthropy Efforts
Jun 2, 2023
by: Grant McLaughlin, The Dispatch
The Tennessee Valley Authority gifted the 4-County Foundation $10,000 during the 4-County Electric Power Association’s annual membership meeting.
4-County held the meeting Thursday at the East Mississippi Community College Communiversity.
CEO Brian Clark told a crowd of more than 500 attendees that TVA donated the gift through its Community Involvement Fund in honor of former CEO Joe Burt Cade, who passed away in April. Clark also provided updates about 4-County’s FASTnet fiber optic cable installation efforts.
Clark said the gift will be disbursed to area donating efforts in 4-County’s nine-county territory, including Lowndes, Oktibbeha and Clay.
Money is spent on education, health and human services or catastrophic intervention efforts, he said.
The 4-County Foundation has donated $2 million since Cade founded it in 2015, Clark said.
In those eight years, it has supported half the costs of a drug canine for Clay County Sheriff’s Office, provided smart boards for schools in Lowndes, Oktibbeha and Clay County, and provided funds for robotics teams in Starkville and New Hope.
TVA Customer Service Manager Josh Wooten said the donation came as a wish from Cade himself, who often worked to increase philanthropy efforts with 4-County in the various towns it operated in.
“We partner with our local power companies and organizations that are doing really good work in the community,” Wooten said.
Clark also provided updates on 4-County’s FASTnet fiber optic cable installation effort, which is now in its final phase in Ackerman and Weir.
4-County began installing fiber optic cable to provide Wi-Fi services to its customers in 2020 and received $41 million in state and federal funds for the project. More than two years later, 4-County has installed more than 3,000 miles of fiber optic cable for 12,407 customers in its service area.