To help bring community support services directly to the people who need them, ComEd is coordinating a series of resource fairs across northern Illinois. At each fair, ComEd collaborates with business, community, and government agencies to bring services that will help residents pay bills, improve their health, and connect with the skills and jobs they need to thrive.
“The primary goal and objective is to create a one-stop shop. We host these resource fairs so we can put all these resources under one big tent for the community,” said Bonita Parker external affairs manager at ComEd.
ComEd held the first resource fair of 2023 in January in Chicago’s Woodlawn neighborhood, made possible through a collaboration with Project H.O.O.D.. During the event, ComEd announced the expansion of bill-assistance options, including the Your Neighbor Fund, which is a supplemental grant program funded by donations from many of ComEd’s 6,300 community-oriented employees, and Catch Up and Save, a two-phase support program that offers monthly credits for past-due balances, as well as free energy-saving kits to help families save on future energy bills.
By partnering with local agencies to host community-based events, ComEd is better able to identify and address the unique needs of each neighborhood the energy company is privileged to serve.
“Our partnership with ComEd has dramatically expanded our capacity, our outreach, and the partners who we have been able to collaborate with— this has been unvaluable,” said Kamil Walton, deputy director of Cornerstone Community Development (CCD), host of ComEd’s second resource fair in Ford Heights, IL in March.
The fairs were created as a direct response to first-of-its-kind study commissioned by ComEd to better understand the inequities that have long impacted many of northern Illinois’ most cherished communities, the barriers these communities face, and to identify opportunities to help families and businesses overcome these barriers.
“We interviewed more than two dozen community stakeholders,” said ComEd CEO Gil Quiniones. “What we found is that people need us to meet them where they are, offer real help and make access to that help as simple as possible.”
You can join ComEd at one of our many ComEd in Your Community events to learn more about assistance options, eligibility, and how to apply. ComEd also provides energy-saving tips and other tools, as well as incentives that can help you manage energy use and lower your electric bill. For details on the next community resource fair, visit ComEd.com/ResourceFair.
