Gas South Commits Over $1 Million to Support COVID-19 Relief

During this trying time, like many of you, Gas South has made adjustments to how they conduct business. Gas South is continuing to consider all impacts from COVID-19, and has taken action to support our community, customers and employees. Here is what Gas South is doing to support their mission to Be a Fuel for Good.

Communities:
Elevating our community is more important now than ever and that’s why Gas South is donating more than $1 million this year to support families throughout Georgia and Florida impacted by COVID-19 – which represents the largest philanthropic commitment that Gas South has ever made. Because the community need is urgent, Gas South will deploy the majority of the funds in April. While Gas South’s annual giving typically includes smaller donations to dozens of local causes over the course of a year – and focuses almost exclusively on programs for children in need – they’re committing more dollars to fewer organizations while expanding the focus to also include programs providing utility payment assistance and support for unemployed restaurant and hotel workers.

Gas South will be prioritizing and increasing support to the following partners – which will represent the largest philanthropic commitment that Gas South has ever made:

  • Atlanta Community Food Bank 
    • To support children out of school who relied on free or reduced lunches
    • To work with the Georgia Hotel & Lodging Association (GHLA) to support local hotel workers
  • HEAT (Heating Energy Assistance Team)
    • To provide financial assistance for utilities for families
  • United Way
    • To help fund the Atlanta COVID Relief and Recovery fund helping to support basic needs and will also include assistance to UW organizations in Florida (Tampa, Miami, Orlando and Jacksonville)
    • To support the Georgia Restaurant Association in their efforts to support restaurant workers
    • To provide funding for local United Way chapters in Tampa, Miami, Orlando and Jacksonville
  • YMCA of Metro Atlanta
    • To support daycare services for emergency workers, first responders and others who must work

Along with these four organizations, Gas South is increasing funding for many of their other partners, including Ser Familia, Society of St. Vincent de Paul and Salvation Army.

The difficulties presented by COVID-19 to our community and nation are unprecedented, and Gas South wants to support our neighbors with these donations while encouraging others to join. We’re confident in each of the organizations ability to put these donations to work effectively and immediately.

Customers:
For residential customers, Gas South is working with Atlanta Gas Light (AGL) to ensure continued service and support. AGL has issued an updated safety policy for their field representatives, calling on customers to disclose exposure concerns in advance of any scheduled appointments to determine the level of protective measures needed. They’re working with AGL to monitor and evaluate the needs of our customers and are suspending all involuntary disconnections through April 30 and don’t anticipate any interruptions to natural gas service, including turn on, reconnect or turn off service requests.

For business customers, Gas South also communicated to them all the federal relief options that are available under the current environment.

Employees:
As the situation surrounding COVID-19 evolved in early March, the possibility of working from home for an extended period of time became more inevitable. To ensure we were prepared to take care of both our employees and our customers, Gas South implemented a work from home stress test day on Tuesday March 10. The IT department quickly provided every team member with a laptop and managers worked with their employees to make sure everyone was properly set up to serve our customers. This test allowed us to work out any bugs in our systems as the reality of the situation became more dire.

On March 18, we then made the decision to require all employee to work from home until further notice. To help ease the transition, Gas South is giving every employee a $25 per pay period stipend throughout the time that we’re working from home to make employee’s work-from-home experience more seamless and effective. Since then, we’re proud that there have been minimal interruptions and Gas South has continued to maintain high service levels.

Share This Post

Continue Reading