CUMBERLAND — Clearway Energy Group recently announced an initial round of donations as part of a newly established benefit fund to assist community projects.
The fifth largest producer of wind, solar and battery storage energy in the U.S., Clearway created the fund in conjunction with its $180 million project to bring wind turbines to Dan’s Mountain. Grants from the Dan’s Mountain Community Benefit Fund will be distributed annually to initiatives in the area.
“Every time that Clearway Energy moves into a new community, we obviously want to become good partners so we have a community benefit fund that we have established for this project,” said Callie Dayton, external affairs manager for Clearway. “It will be $10,000 a year for the life of the project. We will rely on local stakeholders to inform us on where the funds are best used.”
Clearway Energy is proceeding with plans for the construction of nine wind turbines on Dan’s Mountain expected to generate up to 55 megawatts of energy with the potential to power 24,000 homes.
Dayton announced the first three recipients of the funding at an event at the Western Maryland Works training facility in LaVale.
First round recipients were Allegany College of Maryland for the Western Maryland Works facility for $1,000; the REACT (Robotics and Engineering for Allegany County, Together) club was also awarded $1,000. The Western Maryland Health System Foundation Dialysis Patient Assistance Fund was the recipient of a $400 donation.
Clearway owns and operates wind farms in neighboring Mineral and Grant counties in West Virginia. The fund models programs at those facilities, which together have provided more than $400,000 to community initiatives since 2011.
“We are going to use this money to buy equipment and supplies to benefit Western Maryland Works, which provides workforce training for our community,” said David Jones, vice president of advancement and community relations. “We offer a lot of industry standard credentials on a regular basis here. We continue to look to meet the needs of our community and our businesses and entrepreneurs to continue to expand our programs.”
Barry Hartung, president of REACT, said the club focuses on teaching science, technology, engineering and math.
“We fund and support robotics teams and provide training,” said Hartung. “We do coding and gaming camps to build up those skills. We hope to add to the local industry to fill those type positions. Our club is growing faster than we can keep up (with) and that is why resources like this are fantastic.”
Karen Johnson, WMHS Foundation president, said the funding will help kidney dialysis patients struggling with utility bills, transportation expenses and other hardships.
“We are so grateful to our community partners who managed the kidney benefit weekend and their corporate sponsors for supporting our dialysis patients,” said Johnson. “We take pride in keeping all of their donations 100% local for those in need.”