When providing a common service that is essential to a region, doing so in a way that prioritizes its community is vital. NIPSCO does just that, ensuring safety, quality, and reliability is in every Northwest Indiana home.
“Ultimately, we provide our customers with comfort and peace of mind, especially as they navigate these uncertain times where they are working, schooling and being at home more than ever,” said Tara McElmurry, Communications Lead for NIPSCO. “We’re there to ensure they have a steady, safe supply of energy to power their homes and their lives.”
As a public service, NIPSCO’s contributions to everyday life and a functioning, developing community cannot be understated. But as every day brings more and more changes, and as people are home now more than ever, one thing that hasn’t changed is NIPSCO’s focus on being a pillar in the community, which goes beyond the essential service it provides.
“Each summer for the past 10 years, we have conducted our Charity of Choice Campaign, which allows our employees to vote on which charity or cause that we’ll support. This year we chose to support COVID-19 relief efforts among local organizations addressing housing instability, food insecurity, and a lack of affordable childcare with organizations like Boys and Girls Clubs of Greater Northwest Indiana and Meals on Wheels of Northwest Indiana,” McElmurry said. “Usually our employees lead fundraising efforts throughout the summer like a golf outing, cookouts, and family fun days, but this year looked different because of COVID-19.”
This year, NIPSCO employees fundraised virtually, raising $25,000 in employee donations that the company then matched with $50,000, donating a total of $75,000 to support those local organizations. And as the holiday season nears, NIPSCO is continuing its philanthropic efforts.
“We traditionally host our Hope for the Holiday campaign–another employee giving opportunity that supports local Toys for Tots organizations and women’s and children’s homes across our service territory,” McElmurry continued. “Similar to Charity of Choice, we’re doing virtual fundraising this year to keep everyone safe and healthy. Although we wish we could all be together shopping for the cause at our annual employee holiday market or watching the toy donations pile up in our lobby, we’re glad to still be able to support these organizations this year.”
NIPSCO’s efforts in giving back to the community not only meets their mission in being a public service, but also in being an employee and family-focused company.
“Most of our employees live in the communities we serve, and employees are able to see that our customers are their neighbors, friends and family,” McElmurry said. “With the COVID-19 pandemic, our sense of community has deepened. The phrase ‘stronger together’ has never been more true for us, even though most of us aren’t physically together. We’re taking pride in coming together to serve our customers and help them in times of need. This year when a customer issue arises, like some of the big storms this past summer, it’s all hands-on deck for us as we work to restore customers as safely and quickly as possible together.”
While many of us are focused on the present and its challenges, NIPSCO is also looking towards the future with its innovative and important work in the industry, like its "Your Energy, Your Future” transition.
“We are in the midst of a gradual transition away from coal and toward cleaner, more affordable energy with the announcement of eight renewable projects,” McElmurry said. “Our Rosewater Wind project located in White County and Jordan Creek Wind project located in Benton and Warren counties are nearly complete. With this transition, we expect to save our customers more than $4 billion over time, while being coal-free by 2028.”
“We are excited to be making the innovative and more sustainable transition to make our customers’ service cleaner and more affordable.”
For more information about NIPSCO, please visit their website at https://www.nipsco.com/.