Georgia Power uses MLK Day to serve community

MACON, Georgia (41NBC/WMGT) – While many take Martin Luther King Jr. Day off, Georgia Power uses the holiday to give back to the community.

According to Georgia Power, MLK Day is the company’s largest single day of community service.

Ron Shipman is the Georgia Power Regional Vice President of the southwest region. He volunteered this morning in Macon.

“If it’s putting a nail, if it’s putting shingles, if it’s putting blue board; it really doesn’t matter. We just want to be a part of the community just simply because we live here,” Shipman said.

For the third consecutive year, those Georgia Power employees who volunteer in the community — also known as The Citizens of Georgia Power — worked with Habitat for Humanity in the Lynmore area.

What volunteer services does Georgia Power provide?

Shipman says the company provides many volunteer services. However, he ranks this day’s efforts at the top.

“Every time we give back to the community on that particular day, it is number one,” Shipman said.

From 7:30 in the morning until the early afternoon, the volunteers worked at the home on Melvin Place.

Meanwhile, other Georgia Power volunteers served breakfast to the less fortunate at Daybreak — a non-profit that helps homeless.

“Everybody needs help. And what Georgia Power wants to do is just everyplace in the community that needs a little help, that needs a volunteer service, needs some helping hands willing to get out in the cold or in the rain, whatever it takes… that’s what we will do,” Shipman said.

What Shipman mentioned is a prime example of what Georgia Power employees’ say is their mission. To be a citizen of wherever they serve.

According to the company, since 2005, over 14,000 Georgia Power employees have taken part in approximately 375 individual MLK Day of Service projects.